JOSHUA WILLIAM CALDWELL 



A MEMORIAL VOLUME 



CONTAINING HIS 



BIOGRAPHY, WRITINGS AND ADDRESSES 



PREPARED AND EDITED BY 

A COMMITTEE OF THE IRVING CLUB OF 

KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE 



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published for the club by 

Thb Brandon Printing Company, 

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CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Foreword 5 

Biographical Sketch 7 

Civil War Reminiscences 55 

The Transcendental Movement 81 

The South in the Revolution 93 

Goldsmith 103 

Puritan Races and Puritan Living 117 

Changing Customs 137 

East Tennessee in State History 141 

The Song of the Automobile 149 

Last Days of Andrew Jackson 153 

Unchastity in Fiction 163 

Thomas Carlyle 175 

The South is American 183 

Thoreau, The Nature-Lover 205 

Literature and Life of a People 223 

An Epic of the Knoxville Bar 237 

Calhoun the Statesman 241 

Tennessee, Past and Present 253 

Athanasius 267 

The Tater-Bug Parson 285 

The Bar of the South 301 

John Bell of Tennessee 311 

The Chronicle of 1907 325 

Notes Critical and Explanatory 335 




FOREWORD, 

T the regular meeting of the Irving Club, held on 
the evening of the day of Mr. CaldwelFs death, 
the customary program was omitted. A brief 
memorial tribute was adopted, expressing the members' 
sense of loss "of a dear personal friend, a cordial, kindly 
brother, a sympathetic counsellor and leader." The Club 
then appointed Messrs. Henry H. Ingersoll, Leon Jourol- 
mon,W. T.White, James Maynard and George F. Mellen 
a committee to prepare a more extended memorial for 
publication. Warm friends outside encouraged the com- 
mittee to enlarge plans, and make the volume fully worthy 
of the subject. The result of their work is this book, 
containing the picture, biography and the choicest of the 
addresses and literary remains of Joshua William Cald- 
well. 

Knoxville, Tenn., September 15, 1909. 




BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

By Henry H. Ingersoll and George F. Mellen. 

ancestry. 

OSHUA William Caldwell was born at Athens, 

Tennessee, February 3, 1856. He was the son of 
Alfred Caldwell and wife, Jane Dalton Ewing ; 
grandson of John Caldwell and wife, Margaret 
Shaddan, and of Dr. Joshua Ewing and wife, Katherine 
Fulkerson; great-grandson of Anthony Caldwell and wife, 
Elizabeth Aiken, of Samuel Ewing and wife, Mary Houston, 
of John Fulkerson and wife, Jane Hughes, and of Alexan- 
der Shaddan and wife. Flora Henderson. Among his pri- 
vate papers this note is found: *'It seems that Anthony, 
William, Alexander, and two other brothers were sons of 
John Caldwell and his wife Jennie, who according to tradi- 
tion were married on shipboard coming to America." On 
the mother's side, the earliest ancestor who settled in 
America was William Ewing, a native of Coleraine, Ireland, 
who emigrated in 1725 and settled in Maryland. The 
dominant strain in his blood was Scotch-Irish, with infu- 
sion of Dutch through the Fulkersons, of Huguenot through 
the Daltons and of Welsh through the Hughes. 

Immediately after the Revolutionary war Anthony Cald- 
well moved from Virginia to East Tennessee. He had been 
a soldier in the war, and according to family records, was at 
the siege of Yorktown, a youth of eighteen years. He was 
a ruling elder of the Presbyterian Church, and it was in his 
dwelling that the first Sunday-school in Tennessee was 
organized. His son John, an enthusiastic geologist, became 
a pioneer in making known and exploiting the mineral re- 
sources of East Tennessee. He was not college-bred, but 
was an earnest seeker after useful information and took 

especial interest in mineralogical researches. He was the 

(7) 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



first to develop the copper mines in Polk County, and began 
his operations by petitioning the legislature and obtaining the 
passage of a law whereby he leased a section of school land 
near Ducktown. In the spring of 1850 he began to mine 
in the woods. For the first few years the ore was carried 
out of the mountains on the backs of mules. In 1853 he 
built a wagon road at a cost of ^22,000. Up to this time 
only two shafts had been sunk. In 1855 fourteen shafts 
had been sunk, and more than ^1,000,000 worth of ore had 
been shipped to the North. The activities of this remark- 
able man were widely varied. In the chapter, ''Civil War 
Reminiscences," is to be found additional insight into this 
grandfather's life and character. He was the first volun- 
teer of his county, Jefferson, to enlist in the war of 18 12; 
and throughout his life he faithfully supported the Union 
of the States. Under Andrew Johnson's presidency he 
was Pension Agent at Knoxville. 

The father, Alfred Caldwell (1829-1886), was one of the 
prominent lawyers of East Tennessee. He taught school 
to earn money to enable him to take a college course. He 
was graduated at Maryville College, whose junior and senior 
classes he took in one year. His law studies, pursued at 
Lebanon, were completed in 1854. With Milton P. Jar- 
nagin he entered upon the practice of law at Athens, and' 
rose rapidly to success and distinction. The same year he 
married at Rose Hill, in Lee County, Virginia, Jane Dalton, 
the daughter of Dr. Joshua Ewing, a fine type of the coun- 
try doctor of cultivated tastes and comfortable circum- 
stances. In 1859 he was elected a member of the Tennes- 
see General Assembly from McMinn County, and was an 
influential legislator. Though ardently attached to the 
Union and opposed to secession, when the State decided to 
secede, he espoused the Southern side. In 1863 he entered 
the ranks and /ought until captured, remaining in prison 
until the close of hostilities. After the war he moved to 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



Knoxville, where his talents and qualities at once gave him 
high rank at the bar and in politics. In 1872 he was a 
candidate for Congress, but dissensions in Democratic ranks 
wrought his defeat. In 1878 he was the East Tennessee 
candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor, and 
lost it by only a few votes. In a bar that numbered among 
its leaders John Baxter, T. A. R. Nelson, William H. Sneed 
and Horace Maynard, he took a prominent position. Borne 
down by disease, in 1882 he gave up active practice and 
retired to his farm near Strawberry Plains, his boyhood 
home. He lived and died in the communion of the Presby- 
terian Church. 

While on the Ewing side there were not so many ruling 
elders and ministers as the Caldwell clan furnished to the 
Presbyterian faith, still the representation was noteworthy. 
The great-grandfather, Samuel Ewing, was the founder and 
supporter of churches. He likewise served his State effi- 
ciently in office. For fifteen years he was sheriff of his 
county, dying in office in the eightieth year of his age. He 
also served two terms in the Virginia legislature. Of his 
maternal grandfather's piety he thus speaks in the paper, 
^'Calhoun the Statesman": "Looking back I see my 
Virginia grandfather, a life-long slaveholder, fifty years an 
elder of the church, the supporter of a whole community, 
and I am sure that in a better world than this he enjoys 
the richest rewards that wait on saintly living and doing." 
One of the maternal uncles, Rev. C. T. Ewing, was a Pres- 
byterian minister, and it was at his home in Hawkins 
County that the mother died while on a visit in 1888. 

Heredity is justly reckoned a potent influence in shaping 
human life. Certainly Joshua W. Caldwell had a good 
start in his forbears; and in reading his literary remains 
and speeches, one will constantly revert to the ancestry 
from which he sprung, and there find the origin of views 
he tenaciously held and vigorously advocated. 



10 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION. 



In the delightful and frankly personal chapter, *'Civil 
War Reminiscences/' will be found full and interesting 
details of Mr. Caldwell's earliest remembered years. 
Further than an insight into his own life and its environ- 
ment, it is valuable for the glimpses it gives of the suffer- 
ings and horrors of the civil war. When, immediately 
after the war closed, the father moved to Knoxville, the 
son was entered at the Hampden Sidney Academy, John K. 
Payne, principal, who was just from Yale College, being 
a member of the class of 1865. When the next year 
East Tennessee University, now the University of Ten- 
nessee, was opened, the president. Dr. Thomas W. Humes, 
persuaded Professor Payne to bring his boys into the pre- 
paratory department of the University. In this way teacher 
and pupil became identified with the institution with which 
their names are imperishably associated. 

The traditions and memories that linger of his boyhood 
are that he was a studious boy, who preferred to revel in 
the pages of a book to joining in the boisterous games of the 
playground. While he was a good student and loved to 
read, it is a mistake to think of him as averse to pranks or 
as failing to participate in them. Evidence is at hand to de- 
note that good red blood flowed in his veins and that in his 
school days he illustrated faithfully that distinctive genus, 
the American boy. Thirty years afterwards a cousin related 
how he used to pile up, outside of her door, apples by the 
bushel to watch her surprise when she would discover it 
thus barricaded; and how, a mere urchin, he would set up 
buckets and tubs in his grandfather's back yard on an in- 
clined plane and then would shove them to see them roll 
down with a mighty rattling against the fence. Later in 
life, when he had become fourteen years old, the records of 
the Chi Delta Literary Society of East Tennessee Univer- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH II 



sity show that he was repeatedly ''fined ten cents for dis- 
orderly conduct. '* When it is noted that he was always 
thus punished conjointly with such fellow students and com- 
panions as James Maynard, Frank C. Bearden, and David 
H. Ludlow, it is manifest that the bubbling over of youth- 
ful spirits must have brought on the penalties inflicted. 

Young Caldwell won recognition immediately in the 
society not only as an attractive speaker, but as a forceful 
debater. Fellow students recall his frequent successes in 
debate while in college. A study of the records of the Chi 
Delta Literary Society will reveal his liking for this important 
adjunct of college life. On January 21, 1870, he was ad- 
mitted to membership, not yet having reached the age of 
fourteen years. The same night he was assigned to debate 
the question: ''Is Republicanism Increasing in Europe?" 
With S. A. Craig he espoused the affirmative side, while the 
negative found advocates in Frank C. Bearden and Alfred 
N. Jackson. He lost, but the then recording secretary, 
T. C. Karns, placed this in the minutes: "Mr. Caldwell 
delivered a pointed and able speech, well worthy the imita- 
tion of all new members, and some older ones, too." 

The records of the society, for the five following years, 
until his graduation, show how active and efficient was his 
work. He filled all the offices from member of the vigi- 
lance committee for "Grammar School" to the presidency. 
Whenever the society's library was to be looked after, he 
was always named, whether it was to recover books taken 
from the society during the war, or to get up a public en- 
tertainment to raise funds to replenish the library. When- 
ever he was made editor of "The Crescent," the society's 
organ, the record uniformily is that "its reading was re- 
ceived with great applause." He took part in one discus- 
sion described as "a heavy debate." This was about the 
changing of the time for the society's meetings from Satur- 
day morning to Friday night, according to the time honored 



12 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



practice. The faculty had ordered the meetings for Sat- 
urday mornings because of the disorders frequent at the 
night sessions and due to *'non-resident visitors from the 
city/' After the ''heavy debate" and with assurances that 
the disturbances would not be repeated, Friday night ses- 
sions were resumed. When in March, 1875, the first issue 
of the college publication, ''The University Monthly," 
appeared, one of the two editors representing the Chi Delta 
Society was J. W. Caldwell. 

On June 16, 1875, he was graduated from East Ten- 
nessee University Bachelor of Arts. On that day he de- 
livered an oration on the subject: "Tendencies of Modern 
Thought." The Knoxville Press and Herald says of it: 
"Caldwell evinced a power of thought and oratorical abil- 
ity of high order." In 1895 the University conferred on 
him the M. A. degree in course. 

In estimating the formative influences in Mr. Caldwell's 
life, large account is to be taken of the professors under 
whom he studied. As President of the University Dr. 
Humes had gathered about him enthusiastic young men, 
fixed in the scholarly habit and full of the scholarly spirit. 
The members of the faculty were few, and the personal ele- 
ment played a large part in college life. To mention the 
names of his professors is to indicate their quality and 
qualifications. They were in Latin and Greek, Frederic 
D. Allen and Morton W. Easton; in English, R. L. Kirk- 
patrick; in Mathematics, John K. Payne; in Chemistry, 
Wilbur O. Atwater and Beverly S. Burton. They repre- 
sented the learning of the best institutions of New England 
and of Germany. Their love for all good learning was in- 
fectious. Of these, Frederic D. Allen, whose fame as a 
classical scholar became world-wide, exercised the greatest 
influence upon him. In private conversations referring to 
his college days, he was heard more frequently to mention 
Professor Allen's name than that of any other of his precep- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH I3 

tors. For Professor Easton he had also a very high regard. 
The indeUble influence of these instructors was evident in 
his writings in the numerous classical references so happily 
employed. He had a remarkable mastery of Greek mythol- 
ogy, as was repeatedly exhibited in the metrical chronicles 
of the Irving Club. This familiarity with classical lore is 
strikingly shown in the Chronicle of 1907, published in this 
volume. His professor of English, R. L. Kirkpatrick, pro- 
foundly impressed him for versatility of learning, delicacy 
of taste and beauty of character. His tastes did not incline 
toward mathematics and natural sciences, and he studied 
them only as parts of the curriculum; but he spoke appre- 
ciatively of the professors who taught these branches. 

STUDY AND PRACTICE OF LAW. 

After graduation Mr. Caldwell began the study of law 
in the office of his father. He was admitted to the bar 
April 30, 1877, his license being signed by Judges M. L. 
Hall and D. K. Young, respectively criminal and circuit 
judges sitting in Knox County. Next to his father, it is 
probable that John Baxter was a guide and an inspiration 
to him. One entering his office, in the Deaderick build- 
ing, was almost certain to be attracted by a large picture 
of Judge Baxter hanging on the wall. When that eminent 
jurist died in 1886, he had no more sincere mourner than 
Mr. Caldwell, who prepared the resolutions adopted by 
the Knoxville bar, and in the course of a speech before 
the bar assembled to honor his memory, used these words: 

"I wish to offer my humble tribute of respect to the memory 
of Judge Baxter. I can not claim to have known him so long nor 
so intimately as many in this assemblage, but I gratefully ac- 
knowledge myself his debtor for unvarying kindness and for a 
friendship which did not altogether regard the disparities of age 
and position. I have known him from my childhood and always 
as a leader in this community and in his great profession. The 



14 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

sentiment of admiration and respect for him with which I entered 
upon the active duties of our vocation was strengthened and con- 
firmed by experience." 

Mr. Caldwell's thirty years of general legal practice 
comprehended eight years of service as City Attorney 
of Knoxville and ten years as Referee in Bankruptcy, in 
both of which oflfices his service was conspicuously faith- 
ful and efficient. During all these years he continued a 
general civil practice, preferring Chancery and Appeals. 
He chose to escape the strife and turmoil attendant upon 
jury trials and rigidly refrained from criminal practice. 

His natural aversion to criminal cases and clients 
very early received a lasting impetus in an episode occur- 
ring when he and T. A. R. Nelson, then both young law- 
yers, were assigned by the Court to defend Bob Shrews- 
bury, an impecunious prisoner, on a charge of murder of 
a friendless tramp near Strawberry Plains. In discharge 
of this onerous duty they retired, in company with their 
client, about their own age, to the consultation room of 
the Court House, to acquaint themselves with his case, 
character and defense. These were exposed to their con- 
fidence and curiosity by Bob's proposal in all seriousness 
to his new-found counsel that they should manifest their 
fidelity and discharge their professional duty to do the 
best they could for him by forthwith undressing, exchang- 
ing their clothes with him, and remaining in the room 
while he walked out past the sheriff incognito and made 
good his escape. Their services for Shrewsbury ended 
that day. Caldwell betook himself to the Chancery bar, 
and Nelson became State's Attorney and Judge of the 
Criminal Court. Both became better acquainted by the 
episode with the shifts and shams of criminals. 

In his long service as City Attorney he acquired great 
familiarity with the law of municipal corporations, and his 
talents shone with special lustre in two cases of great 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH I5 

local and personal interest, and a third that was State- 
wide in its results. 

The first, styled Railroad v. Knoxville, q8 Tenn., i, in- 
volved a quarter-million municipal subsidy to the Cumber- 
land Gap Railroad, promoted by Mr. Alex. A. Arthur in 
the boom-days of 1887, and resulted in defeat of the stock 
subscription by a majority pf one on the second hearing 
in the State Supreme Court. 

Knoxville v. Africa, 77 Fed. Rep., 501, was the mislead- 
ing title of a complex three-cornered litigation between 
another Knoxville promoter. Col. C. C. Howell, and the 
now wo rid- renowned Wm. G. McAdoo, representing rival 
street car companies, and the city, in strenuous contest 
over street franchises, in which McAdoo was repulsed 
from his native city. He thereupon moved upon New 
York, and has captured it by completing and opening the 
great Hudson River tunnels to travel and traffic. This 
case, ultimately decided by the Federal Court of Appeals, 
settled important principles as to the specific character of 
street franchises and the invalidity of grants thereof in 
general terms. 

The urban population of Tennessee owes Caldwell's 
name lasting gratitude for the service he rendered to civi- 
lization in the great case oi Arnold v. Knoxville, 115 Tenn., 
195, wherein the State Supreme Court was persuaded to 
overrule a leading case which had for a generation clogged 
the wheels of progress in Tennessee, and to open to 
municipal improvements, on local pressure, the door of 
special assessments — the talisman of good streets. 

He was often appointed to serve as special Master in 
the Federal Court in equity cases of grave import. A 
notable instance was his appointment to sell the East 
Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railway in 1894. It was 
rare indeed that his report did not meet judicial approval. 
In a recent emergency, when a challenge to the array of 



l6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

jurors had been allowed and the marshal held incompe- 
tent for the service, Judge Sanford astonished Mr. Cald- 
well by appointing him special marshal to summon a panel 
of jurors for the case from the bystanders. The supply 
of eligibles in the court-room being soon exhausted, the 
Judge directed him to go down on the street and send up 
enough men to make out the panel. With a quizzical 
smile he took his hat and started on his extraordinary ser- 
vice — as foreign to his habits and nature as could be im- 
agined. One by one men came straggling in, and at last 
the special officer appeared with this oral return, thus ad- 
dressing the Court: ''I have scoured the streets and 
alleys in the vicinity, and by dint of very positive assertion 
I have succeeded in persuading eight men that I had the 
Court's authority to demand their services as jurors. 
But this I have accomplished at no little personal peril 
from the dire threats of these business men; and I ask 
your Honor to excuse as many of them as you can, and 
give me personal protection against the others." 

This little sally was but a casual coup^ illustrating the 
delicate humor constantly pervading his conversation, so 
that by it and the sparkling wit illuminating his speeches 
at the bar he usually held his auditors, while he convinced 
them by reason and authority. 

His standards of professional conduct were high and 
his deportment at the bar exemplary. He prepared his 
cases with painstaking fidelity and gave his client's cause 
the best of his skill and ability. His professional life is 
truly epitomized in a tribute prepared by Judge E. T. 
Sanford, of the United States District Court, and read be- 
fore a memorial meeting of the Knoxville bar a few days 
subsequent to his death. In a fittingly exhaustive and 
thoroughly sympathetic sketch. Judge Sanford said: 

"As a lawyer his life illustrated in its every act and deed the 
highest professional ideals; in the strength of his intellect, the 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Ij 

breadth of his learning and the eloquence through which they 
found expression; in an unfailing courtesy to his associates of 
the bar, which attached them to him in the closest bonds of per- 
sonal friendship; and in a scrupulous integrity and honorable 
dealing alike with his fellow lawyers and with the courts, which 
leaves the memory of his name as the synonym of that which 
is true, honorable and of good report in professional life.'' 

His devotion to his great profession is further shown 
by active participation in the annual meetings of the Ten- 
nessee Bar Association, of which he became a member in 
i8qi. In August, 1894, he read a carefully prepared paper 
before that body on *' Constitution-Making in Tennessee — 
A Historical Sketch." A recognized authority on consti- 
tutional government, he was appointed on the committee 
to agitate the calling of a new constitutional convention. 
In 1895 he was made chairman of the committee on juris- 
prudence and law reform, and submitted an exhaustive 
report the following year. In the 1895 meeting he read a 
biographical sketch of Hugh Lawson White, the substance 
of which appears in his ''Bench and Bar of Tennessee." 

Caldwell, like Blackstone, experienced in his mind the 
strenuous contest for supremacy between literature and 
law, and with his great exemplar he could say to the muse: 

As, by some tyrant's stern command, 
A wretch forsakes his native land, 
In foreign climes condemn'd to roam 
An endless exile from his home; 
Pensive he treads the destin'd way. 
And dreads to go, nor dares to stay, 
'Till on some neighb'ring mountain's brow 
He stops, and turns his eyes below. 
There, melting at the well-known view, 
Drops a last tear, and bids adieu; 
So I, thus doom'd from thee to part. 
Gay Queen of Fancy and of Art, 
Reluctant move, with doubtful mind. 
Oft stop, and often look behind. 



l8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Then welcome business, welcome strife, 
Welcome the cares, the thorns of life; 
The visage wan, the pore-blind fight. 
The toil by day, the lamp at night. 
The tedious forms, the solemn prate. 
The pert dispute, the dull debate. 
The drowsy Bench, the babbling hall, 
For thee, fair Justice, welcome all! 

Indeed it is to be doubted if he ever did prefer the law 
to letters; and if literature had offered an equal living with 
the law he would have probably given his life to it as a 
profession. For, while he served the law as a jealous 
mistress, long and faithfully, and ever to her honor, his 
affections and his best endeavors were given not to her, 
but to his true love, belles-lettres, which always held his 
heart. 

POLITICS. 

In politics Mr. Caldwell was a democrat after the school 
of Thomas Jefferson. He gave unwavering allegiance to 
the Democratic party, and yet he did not seek or wish pub- 
lic office. He made occasional speeches in furtherance of 
the interests of candidates, and consented, at intervals, to 
serve the party in purely honorary or non- remunerative 
positions. The ordinary methods of office-seekers and the 
undignified scrambles after office were repugnant to his 
tastes and foreign to his practices. Yet it was a current 
remark that there was no office within the gift of the people 
which he would not have adorned. 

In September, 1884, he made a speech before the Knox- 
ville Working Men's Club in aid of the Democratic nom- 
inees. At the outset he said: ^* I would have you under- 
stand that I am not a politician in fact nor in expectancy." 
While he repudiated the idea of being a politician, he early 
imbibed the spirit of his native section and manifested 
interest in politics and political discussions. In a speech 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH I9 

made in 1888, as Democratic elector of the Second Congres- 
sional District, he declared that just twenty years before 
that time ( 1868) he had heard his first Democratic speech 
from the lips of Capt. W. L. Ledgerwood. In the Democratic 
Congressional Convention that met in early September of 
that year, he was unanimously nominated to be elector. 
For a month he held the position, and already had made 
some speeches in the district with good effect; but finding 
private and business demands pressing, he asked to be 
relieved. The Congressional committee found the reasons 
good and suflScient, and released him with regret. 

In 1880 Mr. Caldwell had been tried in a similar posi- 
tion, much to the satisfaction of party men. He was chosen 
Democratic sub-elector for Knox County. His first speech 
was made in the Eleventh District. The Knoxville Tribline 
said: 

"He had a good crowd which Hstened with marked attention 
to the gifted young speaker. He is reported to have made a 
splendid speech, and did the cause which he so ably represented 
a vast deal of good. The choice of Mr. Caldwell for the county 
was certainly a very happy one." 

In the Knoxville Tribune is to be found the synopsis of 
his most elaborate speech of that campaign. In national 
politics Hancock and English were the Democratic presiden- 
tial nominees, while Garfield and Arthur headed the Repub- 
lican national ticket. In Tennessee politicians were wrest- 
ling with the settlement of the State debt. The speech was 
made at Mount Olive Church, south of the Tennessee River. 
It consumed one hour and a half, and throughout held 
closely the attention of the audience. Mr. Caldwell main- 
tained that the Democratic party was the party of the con- 
stitution, that the Republican party was one of centraliza- 
tion, virtually standing for kingly power. Hamilton, its 
founder, had declared that he believed in the choosing of 
presidents for life. Garfield had said that Hamilton was 



20 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

the greatest man the country had produced. It followed 
that Garfield must have endorsed the sentiments of Hamil- 
ton, and was, therefore, in favor of monarchical govern- 
ment. 

He then cited the policies of the Republican party, its 
interference with a free ballot by placing soldiers at the 
polls; its favoring of railroad combinations and monopolies; 
its connection with great land swindles and other acts that 
should consign it to oblivion. He alluded to Republican 
bookkeeping, and the robberies of many millions of dollars; 
spoke of the bloody shirt policy and declared it contempt- 
ible. He congratulated the Republicans of Tennessee upon 
carrying out their idea of social equality by placing a negro 
on the State electoral ticket, and of Knox County in making 
one a deputy sheriff. He advocated a settlement of the 
State debt upon the best terms possible, and paid compli- 
ments to the county's legislative ticket, saying that it was 
the best that had been presented to the people by any 
party since the war. Its personnel was W. A. Henderson 
for senator, T. R. Cornick, Jr., for floater, Sam McKinney 
for representative. 

In 1894 he was made temporary chairman of the Demo- 
cratic State convention. Speaking of his selection the 
Nashville American said: 

"Besides being a studious and thorough lawyer, he finds time 
for recreation in purely literary work, and is an esteemed contrib- 
utor to many of the leading magazines of the country. He is a 
fluent writer of chaste English. As a speaker he is a power, and 
his oratory never appeals in vain for the right. In the very prime 
of life he has well earned the honor bestowed upon him by the 
committee, and will wear it gracefully and with satisfaction to all 
who come under the sound of his voice. Whether as lawyer or 
politician he is a man one can not know too well." 

In its summary of the work of the convention, the 
Chattanooga News said: 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 21 

"East Tennessee had reason to be proud of the tact and abil- 
ity displayed by Joshua W. Caldwell as temporary chairman. 
The unanimous finding of the convention was that he acquitted 
himself with distinguished honor. Indeed, despite the high name 
which General Wright holds worthily as a lawyer and statesman, 
it was conceded that as permanent presiding officer of the conven- 
tion he gained nothing by comparison with his immediate prede- 
cessor in the chair." 

Tennessee suffered distinct loss in that such a man was 
not pressed into her service in high official position. No 
one of her sons was better fitted. He would have made a 
worthy Senator. The State would have been especially hon- 
ored by any service he would have been permitted to render 
in that august body, the United States Senate. He had the 
capacity to consider in a comprehensive way important 
questions of public policy. He had the solid culture and the 
gifts of speech which would have commended to colleagues 
his views and utterances. He would have made a noble Gov- 
ernor. He knew so intimately the history of State policies 
and administrations, he kept himself so well informed on 
vital questions of the hour, he lived upon such an exalted 
plane of thought and life, that the State would have reaped 
decided benefit from his accurate knowledge and broad 
survey of institutions, policies and needs. 

EDUCATION AND THE UNIVERSITY. 

As a cultural force in the State and the community he 
so long honored, it is safe to say that, of individuals, he 
was among its foremost representatives. It was as presi- 
dent of the Alumni Association of the University of Ten- 
nessee, as trustee of the same institution, as trustee of the 
Lawson McGhee library, as trustee of the Tennessee Deaf 
and Dumb Asylum, and as president of the Irving Club, 
that he best illustrated and exercised this influence. In 
view of his activity in the practice of law, it is remarkable 



22 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

that he accomplished so much in the cultural field, how- 
ever congenial to his tastes. It was this universality and 
this activity that caused Gov. Peter Turney, in 1895, to 
invite him to become the State's Superintendent of Educa- 
tion, an office he declined without hesitation. However, 
he became connected with the Turney administration, 
serving (1895-97) ^^ J^^ge Advocate General on the Gov- 
ernor's staff. Likewise, when in 1904 there was a vacancy 
in the presidency of the University of Tennessee, he was 
regarded as pre-eminently fitted for the place. His love 
for his alma mater and for his State caused him to delib- 
erate long before coming to a decision. When he with- 
drew his name from consideration, after carefully weigh- 
ing the matter, and when the distinction was all but con- 
ferred by formal election, many felt that he turned aside 
from a work that would have proved thoroughly congenial 
and for which he was peculiarly qualified. 

Apart from his intellectual gifts, his recognized posi- 
tion in literature and his State-wide reputation, it was his 
tried loyalty to his alma mater and his intimate familiarity 
with her workings that commended his fitness for the 
presidency. The steadfastness of the one and the thor- 
oughness of the other are matters of record in the annals 
of the State and the University. Three years after grad- 
uation he was made President of the Alumni Society of the 
institution, and in 1879 was his own successor. After a 
trial of rotation in office, in 1894 he was again made presi- 
dent of the organization, and by annual successive elec- 
tions was retained at its head until his death. Twice he 
was alumni orator, in 1882 and 1889. The subject of the 
first oration was ** Lessons from the Life of a Great Man," 
which was published in the '*Chi Delta Monthly Cres- 
cent." Emerson and the Transcendental Movement early 
engaged his thought and study, had a distinct influence 
upon his intellectual life, and inspired his whole nature in 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 23 

this oration. The subject of the second address was 
^^Americanisms," which, reworked and modified, appears 
in this volume under the title, '*The South is American." 

At the beginning of this second era as President the 
practice of having alumni banquets was begun. In the 
University of Tennessee *' Record" of June, 1898, he pub- 
lished a *' History of the Alumni Association." He says: 
"Beginning in 1894, the Association has had an annual 
banquet at commencement, and these banquets have been 
very inspiring, and have done much to quicken interest in 
the affairs of the Association and of the University." It 
was on these occasions that he was to be seen in his hap- 
piest and most attractive mood. As presiding officer, or 
toastmaster, or in response to some toast, he aroused the 
enthusiasm of the sons and daughters of the institution, 
stirred within them a deeper love of alma mater, and 
interspersed his speeches with such wit and humor as to 
put the banqueters in a flow of gleeful spirits. The bur- 
den of nearly all his speeches on these occasions was the 
duty of the alumni to the University. At times he dwelt 
upon the relation of the State to the University, and the 
duty it owed the institution in adopting towards it a gen- 
erous policy. Another theme dear to him on these occa- 
sions was **The Riches of Scholarship." 

Whenever the University demanded his services, he 
responded heartily. Within the space of a twelve-month 
the call was thrice repeated. In April, 1901, he was 
the orator of University Day, and delivered an address on 
**The Period of Andrew Jackson." In September follow- 
ing, upon the opening of the University, he delivered a 
memorial address on President William McKinley. The 
University ** Record," in an outline of the address, says: 
** Mr. Caldwell spoke without manuscript, and his address 
was considered one of the most eloquent and impressive 
ever delivered from the University platform." In the 



24 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

April following, when the Ogden party visited Knoxville 
and the University of Tennessee, it was tendered an elab- 
orate banquet at the Woman's building. Again Mr. Cald- 
well was in demand for one of the speeches of the occasion. 

In 1896 he was made trustee of the University, and 
soon after became chairman of the experiment station 
committee of the Board of Trustees. His election was in 
line with what he had been contending for in many meet- 
ings of the Alumni Association. He argued that the insti- 
tution's welfare was dependent, in large measure, upon 
the management and active interest of its alumni. Both 
in the faculty and in the Board of Trustees he pleaded for 
a larger representation of its graduates. When Dr. Charles 
W. Dabney, one year after his installation as President, 
revolutionized affairs by removing all but one member of 
the faculty, a protest went up from the Alumni Association. 
The members of the faculty dropped were alumni of the 
institution. Mr. Caldwell introduced a resolution in con- 
demnation of the policy of the new President, which was 
passed unanimously. It is believed that later he endorsed 
the acts of the new President as necessary for the reorgan- 
ization and remodelling of the institution. As the Board 
of Trustees is at present constituted, the policy advocated 
finds its vindication. If few alumni are represented in 
the faculty of the University, it has been because the 
graduates have not turned their attention to post-graduate 
studies and preparation for advanced instructional work. 

Mr. Caldwell's devotion to the University was not 
based merely upon sentiment. He believed in the institu- 
tion because of its merits. In the address made at the 
Tennessee Centennial, in 1897, speaking on '^East Ten- 
nessee in State History," he made a plea for the Univer- 
sity which, through the years, he iterated and reiterated: 

**Of the University of Tennessee,! desire to repeat here deHber- 
ately what I have said elsewhere, that a few years ago it was ex- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 25 

celled among Southern institutions only by the University of Vir- 
ginia, and now I say it is excelled by none. I believe that the 
University of Tennessee, in the quality of its w^ork, is superior to 
any other university or college in the Southern States. * * * 
May we not hope for the coming of a time when encouragement, 
and not unkindness, will be the policy of Tennessee toward this 
splendid institution which worthily bears her own name.'* 

THE IRVING CLUB. 

With this survey of his enthusiasm for things of the 
mind, it is easy to understand how the organization of a 
literary club, composed of kindred spirits, would con- 
tribute still further to his intellectual growth and pleasure. 
Herein is to be found the genesis of the Irving Club. 

Belles-lettres were his never failing source of pleasure, 
and the Irving Club was the joy of his life. After his fam- 
ily it had no rival in his affections — save St. John's parish. 
It had its origin in his brain, and was formed at a meeting 
called at his office in December, 1886. He was its only 
President while he lived — annually chosen for several years, 
but for more than a decade holding the place by common 
consent. 

How cordially and indisputably his confreres of the Club 
yielded to him the primacy was fittingly expressed by the 
venerable Col. James Van Deventer. The occasion was 
the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Club's exist- 
ence and the presentation of a gavel made of wood taken 
from the famous Tabard Inn. Col. Van Deventer said: 

**Mr. President: It is not necessary to tell you that we cele- 
brate to-night the decennial anniversary of the Irving Club. 
During the whole period of the club's existence, it has been its 
exceeding good fortune to have had you for its president. But 
it can not be truthfully said of you, 'Uneasy lies the head that 
wears a crown,' — for during your official reign your rule has been 
so considerate, so good in all things, and therefore so lightly felt, 
that neither crown nor sceptre nor other symbol of authority has 
been needed to promote loyalty and to keep good order. 



26 , BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

"Our past as a club has been full of good fellowship. We 
have come to our stated meetings at your hospitable home, know- 
ing full well we would absorb restfulness of spirit with the air we 
breathed; and our labors being ended, we have gone hence re- 
freshed by the companionship we have enjoyed. 

"The decade just closed has been one of great development 
for the club. The little group of three or four who gathered to- 
gether ten years ago in the name of our patron author to form a 
club has enlarged its circle, has expanded into an influential or- 
ganization, has become one of the chief literary features of our 
city. 

"Vigor has come to us with expansion. All this, sir, and more, 
we owe in a great measure to you. The gentle treatment which 
is so suited to the tender stages of existence may not be always so 
well adapted to the later stages of maturity. Having to deal with 
such intellectual sons of Anak as Ingersoll, Frazee, Elmore, San- 
ford, Henneman, Turner and others, it is the part of wisdom in 
the club to take precautionary measures by putting in your hands 
an instrument, the least use of which will calm turbulence like 
pouring oil on troubled waters. 

"To this end, I have the honor, sir, in the name and behalf of 
the Irving Club, to present to you this gavel as an emblem of your 
rightful authority, and ask you to accept it, Mr. President, with 
the aff'ection of the Irving Club." 

For twenty years the Club's meetings, on his urgent 
invitation, were held at his residence. The Monday even- 
ings occurring between the middle of September and the first 
of June were given to these conventions, and he has re- 
corded in one of his choice ^'Chronicles of the Irving Club," 
that "in more than nine years it has not missed a single 
meeting." Indeed, so attractive were these literary social 
synods that in twenty years only one meeting was unat- 
tended. 

Eight o'clock was the hour of assembly; and few indeed 
were the occasions, in this full score of years, when Mr. 
Caldwell was not present to welcome these chosen friends 
in person to his hospitable home. 

These unrivalled ''Chronicles of the Irving Club," jest- 
ingly described by him as "the most trustworthy and im- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH X] 

portant contributions to contemporary history, adding 
largely to the stock of accurate public information and con- 
firming the deserved reputation of the author for unvary- 
ing truthfulness," were introduced by '^The Making of the 
Irving Club,'* a Christmas token for 1889, in which occur 
the following narrative paragraphs: 

"The members were accustomed, during the first year, to 
write upon the subjects assigned them, much more than in later 
years. It has been demonstrated that it is best for the leaders to 
write. But the club has constantly recognized the fact that in- 
formality is its greatest charm. It was, from the beginning, in- 
tended that the machinery of government should be the simplest, 
and that every member should be allowed the utmost latitude of 
opinion and expression. It was believed that the character of the 
membership was such as to preclude the possibility of any abuse 
of privilege. This expectation has been fulfilled in every respect. 
The discussions have, as a rule, been animated, and there have 
always been marked divergences of opinion, but the history of 
the club has to this time been devoid of unpleasant incident. 
Nothing has occurred to mar the pleasure of any meeting, or to 
disturb the cordial relations of the members. 

"In the selection of subjects, it was resolved that no topic 
should be excluded except such as involved the discussion of 
'partisan politics or polemic theology,' — a felicitous phrase for 
which we are indebted to Judge Ingersoll, and one for which he 
has not unnaturally manifested somewhat frequently a decided 
partiality. The wisdom of the limitation thus established is 
obvious." 

At Christmas, 1895, appeared his first "Epic of the 
Irving Club," introduced by a page of proem, concluding 
thus: "The author has been at pains to indicate by appro- 
priate words that this introduction is prose, while that 
which follows is not." And thus he gives an epitome of 
its life: 



uy 



Tis nine years now, and more, agone. 
Since Trving's' work was well begun. 
We've traveled much and traveled far, 
Found much to please, done nought to mar 
Our fellowship and warm affection, 



28 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Nor cause unkindly recollection. 

No Utica pent our way confines, 

We yield to few restricting lines; 

Theology we wisely fear 

And politics we come not near; 

But these alone in thought's domain 

Can e'er restrict us or restrain. 

We have not sounded lowest deeps 

Nor climbed, perchance, the highest peaks. 

Not caring much to be profound, 

But satisfied on middle ground. 

And if we have not gathered store 

Of dry and musty pedant lore. 

One thing there is that makes amends. 

We have become the best of friends." 

Although in this epic he had '^invoked the frohc Muse" 
for personal mention of members' feats and frailties, the 
following verse discloses a cordial antipathy he felt for the 
modern pronunciation of Latin: 

"I would our scholars all exalt. 
But find with some a single fault. 
We ne'er can yield our Cicero, 
Nor e'er our Hercules forego. 
In Kikero we'll have no part. 
Nor Herakles, the new upstart. 
There is a continental way. 
The fad and fangle of a day. 
Of speaking Greek and Latin, too. 
Which sober thought must sure eschew." 

In the Eighth Chronicle, issued in May, 1897, after des- 
canting with delightful abandon on personal traits of his 
fellow members, Caldwell thus summarizes the work and 
aims of the body : 

"The club continues to be a free body held together by the 
bonds of cordial friendship and of a desire for improvement. It 
has no constitution, almost no rules, and no formalities. 

"Its aim is the culture of its members and thereby the good 
of the community. It avoids publicity, believing that its true 
policy is to confine its direct work to its own members. It has 
always been conservative. It is not reactionary, but it is not 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 29 

eager to receive and to adopt every new and fantastic theory, nor 
to ally itself with every movement against existing things. 
There is no propaganda here. It is not a dogma of the club that 
everything that is, is wrong, and only new things are right. In 
matters of faith, it has never declared orthodoxy to be synony- 
mous with error, nor all heterodoxy to be infallibly right or 
necessarily wrong. It does not deny the possibility of improving 
orthodoxy, nor the excellence of much that is called heterodox. 
Its prevailing tone is conservative and orthodox. It does not seek 
to direct its members in these matters, but each is, as he ought to 
be, his own untrammeled master. 

"Without being indifferent to philosophy or opposed to pro- 
gress, it has not yet reached the point where it considers the uni- 
verse as the smallest subject worthy of its attention. In literature, 
it is at once conservative and liberal. It has members who 
think that literary form, art, may be allowed to excuse much that 
others, including the writer, condemn. There are members who 
can not disconnect any art entirely from morality, and in that 
judgment the writer positively joins, but with a proper spirit of lib- 
erality the club has studied every phase of every literature, past 
and present. It does not believe that the relations of the sexes 
must necessarily be irregular in fiction any more than in fact, nor 
that brutalism is the only subject worthy of genius, or the only 
one which affords opportunity for the highest art. 

"As to poetry, we have not yet reached the point of casting 
away all the old beliefs. We are not yet persuaded that the old 
metrical forms are wholly worthless, dead weights and clogs, and 
that a two-foot verse followed by a ten-foot verse, succeeded by a 
seven-foot verse, is an irresistible demonstration of supreme 
poetic genius. 

"There are still members of the club who persist in admiring 
Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, Chaucer, and so abject a 
slave to rhyme and meter as Robert Burns, even in an age illumi- 
nated and glorified by the transcendant and incomparable genius 
of Browning and Whitman. It may be that in the better future of 
art and poetry, whose advent is so enthusiastically prophesied 
on many sides, we shall reach and grasp the final and crowning 
conception that the chief end of poetry is obscurity, displayed 
without rhyme or meter, but we are not yet among the initiate 
who confidently promulgate this dogma. 

"It may be that we are confused by the blinding radiance of 
the multiplicity of new lights of belief and of criticism that burst 
upon us from many quarters as the century draws to a close; but 
holding our minds ever open to 'new influxes of Hght and power,' 



30 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

and doing our best in the places in which our duty falls, we may 
hope that in the end we too may see the truth in its glory and 
beauty, or if not, we must be content to have done our best, 
without envy of our brothers and sisters who, more gifted and 
better fated than we, shall be numbered among the elect/' 

And this exposition of corporate characteristics he thus 
elaborates in the Chronicle of 1900: 

"The Irving Club has never been a public, but always a pri- 
vate institution. It has not sought, but has shunned notoriety. 
Without proclaiming any purpose or mission, or assuming special 
merit, it has stood for cleanness in literature, and for a conserva- 
tive, rational and real progress. It concedes the right of all men 
and of all women to prophesy, and to reform anything or every- 
thing; but its mission is primarily to its own members, and it 
leaves to other and more strenuously progressive organizations 
the larger duties of general reconstruction, and the higher satis- 
faction of persistent public service. It did not conceive an en- 
thusiasm for Trilby and has tacitly admitted its incompetency 
for the profound occultisms of Ibsen and his imitators. I am 
happy to say again that it has not yet reached the conclusion that 
the essence of poetry consists in the avoidance of rhyme and 
rhythm. It has not yet conceded the first place in English 
poetry to Walt Whitman. It is not yet wholly converted to the 
worship of Balzac, and hesitates to admit that his was a mightier 
genius than Shakespeare's. If it has not actively resisted the 
tendency to banish modesty and decency from the American stage, 
it has not openly endorsed the movement. It observes with in- 
terest the effort to exclude the masculine sex from any participa- 
tion in affairs; but in this, as in all things else, it is prepared to 
submit to the salutary and irresistible laws of progress. It has 
not denied that the time is out of joint; but has not been hasty 
to assume the task of setting it right, seeing the readiness of many 
organizations and of many individuals to undertake it, and not 
doubting that, as there are so many reformers, the triumph of 
truth and right is inevitable." 

The following excerpt from the Chronicle of 1901 con- 
tains autobiographical matter of interest, and charming 
commentary on the Club's relation to current thought: 

"In the last twenty-five years we have witnessed some inter- 
esting changes in this eminently respectable, intelligent, and not 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 3 1 

wholly unconservative community. I remember distinctly that 
a quarter of a century ago I imported a copy of Spencer's 'First 
Principles/ I think that then, and for some years after, there 
was no other in Knoxville. I got also a volume of Spencer's 
Essays, and from these, together with an odd volume of Laplace, 
and some essays of John Tyndall, and Darwin's arguments on the 
theory of Natural Selection, I constructed a graduating address 
which I considered a luminous discussion of, first. Evolution, sec- 
ond, Natural Selection, and third, the Nebular Hypothesis. 
Probably I would now substitute the adjective nebulous for 
luminous. Nevertheless, as a consequence, I had the beginning 
of a limited reputation for excessive heterodoxy, which was in- 
creased in intensity, if not in extent, by a purchase of the first 
complete set of Emerson ever seen here. I used to keep some of 
Tom Paine's books in a back corner of my bureau drawer, under 
my shirts. I hesitated to accept as a gift a copy of John Motley's 
fine essay on Voltaire, and later was tempted to conceal the fact 
that I had bought a copy of Harriet Martineau's arraignment of 
the Positive Philosophy. I am not sure that I was not held up to 
one Sunday-school class as an *awful example,' when I made a 
public address on Emerson. But alas for my poor little hetero- 
doxies, and my feeble claims to be an advanced thinker. Along 
with the heterodoxies were certain hereditary and stubborn 
orthodoxies which would not be displaced. 

"We who are orthodox or even conservative, have seen large 
elements, male, and it may be equally large elements, female, 
sweep by us, exulting, self-satisfied, upon a surging tide of new, 
defiant, aggressive thought, wholly iconoclastic, delightful in 
novelty, supremely confident. The furore for newness has spread 
wide. Many men and women are ready to accept everything 
that is new. There is an immense receptivity, untrammelled by 
independent thinking, an unbounded, intellectual hospitality un- 
checked by discrimination, a mental hastiness, and a free hand- 
ling of the gravest questions, hardly equalled in New England, in 
the hey-day of transcendentalism. 

"We have seen all manner of heterodoxies and progressions; 
splendid and impossible altruistic theories; orientalisms mani- 
fold; Whitmanism clothed in such resplendent and high phrases 
as 'cosmic symphonies;' sporadic manifestations of mental sci- 
ence and Christian science; ephemeral Unitarianism and Uni- 
versalism; metaphysics of surpassing and paralyzing transcen- 
dentality; dissatisfaction with all things existent and an eager- 
ness, coupled with confidence, to recast the universe. 

"All these we have had and many things beside; phases of 



32 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

worship of the alluring goddess, Novelty, ever attractive to minds 
that think quickly and do not care to think otherwise. In all this 
the Irving Club has had no part. It has done no harm, and I 
think it has done much good. 

"Let me say, as a final word, that every thoughtful man must 
realize that without progress there can be no life, individual or 
collective. In all the vagaries that are constantly appearing 
there may be elements of truth. I do not deny to any one sin- 
cerity, or rectitude of purpose. I believe that sincerity almost 
invariably accompanies, the reform temperament, and is a suffi- 
cient cause for respect. That which is condemned is the evil of 
hasty change, the surrender of judgment, the failure to think, 
and the bigotry of novelty worship, unconscious it may be, but 
enormous nevertheless.". 

His first epic of the Irving Club concludes with these 
contrite words: 

"And now the poet must confess 
That in the effort to express 
A sentiment appropriate 
To every associate, 
He has all laws of rhymic relaxed 
And rhythmic rules most sorely taxed. 
Him you must not contemplate as 
Gifted with divine afflatus; 
No Pegasus he doth bestride; 
Drinks not from Pierian Springs, 
But only what the hydrant brings; 
Upon the rhymes in pain he lingers. 
Oft counts his feet upon his fingers. 
He now admits, as oft is said. 
That poets are born and are not made. 
A promise freely now he makes. 
In fact, an obligation takes. 
That never more he'll woo the Muse, 
For any's sake, no matter whose." 

Nevertheless in 1905 again he ^'sangin numbers for the 
numbers came;" and after personal mention of all members 
he indulges in this reminiscence: 

And so we've run the gamut o'er. 
The tired Muse will serve no more. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 33 

But backward turns to Helikon 

And leaves the poet all alone, 

Save for memories rising fast, 

Recalling pleasures of the past: 

The Colonel's kind and genial voice, 

His essays rare and diction choice; 

And Elmore, sturdy, wise and strong, 

Whose papers never were too long; 

Nor less the brightness that was lent 

By him, our lost, lamented Kent. 

Our Henneman I hear again. 

Who all things did with might and main. 

Forever instinct with a zeal 

That colder men can never feel; 

While gracious memories overwhelm 

Whene'er we think of Carter Helm. 

A vision comes of a winter night 

In which we saw a pleasant sight: 

The Doctor* dear possessed the floor. 

And held it for an hour or more; 

A weighty theme evoked his strength. 

And also favored learned length. 

The essay ran on like the brook. 

Nor e'er the reader notice took 

That twenty minutes long had gone 

Before his task was well begun. 

In faultless cadence on he read 

While Somnus came with silent tread 

To where the Major calm reposed, 

And gently both his eyelids closed; 

Then, flitting to the Judge's seat. 

His soft enchantment did repeat; 

Then Peyton, smiling broad and bland. 

Resisted not his magic hand. 

And last of all I must recite 

The fall of knowledge-burdened White. 

The Doctor read, and never paused 

To wonder how the smiles were caused, 

As we beheld the tranquil four, 

And trembled at the Major's snore. 

At last, 'mid well-deserved applause, 

The Doctor made his final pause. 

His paper, be it justly said, 

Was elcxjueiU and finely read. 



♦John Bell Henneman. 



34 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Soon as he stopped the Judge awoke, 
And first of all the silence broke. 

"A splendid paper — on my word, 
A better one I never heard. 
Nor less of pleasure comes to me 
Because in all I can't agree." 
Then up spoke Peyton, half awake, 

"My partner's side I surely take." 
The Major, opening slow his eyes. 
Surveyed the scene with mild surprise: 

"Your essay, Doctor, is very strong. 
And not a single word too long." 
And White, with sleepy eyes and voice. 
Declared the essay very choice. 



So the o'er true story endeth, story of the golden past. 
Years wherein were born our friendships, growing stronger till the last, 
Old time friendships to be cherished, cherished till the final call. 
For 'tis true, though 'tis not novel, old time friends are best of all. 

Add to these excerpts from divers epics and chronicles 
the composite chronicle of 1907, printed hereinafter among 
his literary remains, and Mr. Caldwell is seen at full length 
in his happiest mood at his own fireside entertaining his 
chosen friends of the Irving Club, with his joyous fancy 
and sparkling humor on topics of every kind that could 
amuse and entertain a company of gentlemen in the library 
of a belles-lettres scholar. 

LITERATURE AND HISTORY. 

What impressed one familiar with Mr. Caldwell's 
career was the versatility of his talents. Industrious and 
learned as he was in the law, he was widely proficient and 
keenly critical as a man of letters. Exhibitions of this pro- 
ficiency were noted not only in papers read in the Irving 
Club and in numerous addresses and publications, but in 
the wideness'of his range and thoroughness of his methods 
when he reviewed the literary workmanship of others. His 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 35 

literary tastes were marked even in childhood and when a 
student in the University of Tennessee. In this formative 
period the love of good literature and the habit of reading 
became fixed. In the introduction of his paper on Gold- 
smith, he said: 

"From my earliest recollection Goldsmith has been one of my 
chief sources of pleasure. I can not remember when I first read 
Irving's account of him, and I know that I have read it at least 
four times. I can not remember when I did not enjoy Deserted Vil- 
lage more than any other poem in the language. Moses and the 
Spectacles are among the things which I seem to have known 
about always, even before I knew Robinson Crusoe and Friday." 

Another glimpse into this period is afforded in the paper, 
"Puritan Races and Puritan Living." He says: 

"I am fascinated by mediaeval history and romance. Froissart 
filled my young imagination with pictures of marvelous splendor, 
and gave to my days and nights surpassing pleasure." 

With rare insight he roamed over the fields of knowl- 
edge, storing its treasures, culling its gems and enriching 
his mind. Poetryappealed to his refined sentiment. Amid 
his poetical revels the beauties and melodies of verse so 
won his attachment that he, as these pages attest, showed 
himself a no mean master of versification. In the higher 
class of fiction, he had an intimacy with its best produc- 
tions, which made his criticisms of that department of lit- 
erature penetrating and illuminative. With the great ora- 
tors of ancient and modern times he had acquainted himself 
in a way whichevidenced that he understood the conditions 
which called forth their impassioned utterances, and appre- 
ciated the arts by which they aroused audiences and con- 
vinced judgments. 

It was in the historical domain of letters that he gave 
forth the best fruits of his training and investigation. As 
these pages abundantly testify, he was a devoted student of 
the history of his native State. In permanent form he has left 



36 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

the results of his investigations. His ''Constitutional His- 
tory of Tennessee" and ''Bench and Bar of Tennessee'^ 
have upon them the stamp of the trained student and sincere 
lover of his native State's institutions and of her great law- 
yers. Working in a new department of the State's history, 
wherein the sources were difficult to secure, in his own 
mind there was not the satisfaction he had hoped to enjoy 
from the results of his labors. Yet a lasting debt of grat- 
itude is due him in that he contributed so much towards 
preserving essential facts, which but for him might have 
remained forgotten or unknown. 

The first edition of "Constitutional History of Tennes- 
see" appeared in 1895. With students of government and 
institutions it won immediate recognition, and was cited as 
a valuable authority. Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, in his 
"Winning of the West," frequently referred to it. The 
lamented Dr. John. Bell Henneman, in the August, 1896, 
issue of the Sewanee Review, had an illuminating article 
on "Recent Tennessee History by Tennesseans." Refer- 
ring incidentally to Mr. Roosevelt's volumes as indicative 
of a new American spirit, "American to the core, native of 
America, nourished under American government and de- 
veloped under American conditions," he says: 

"This was the inspiration of the message of Mr. Roosevelt's 
volumes to Tennessee students. This likewise is the spirit under- 
lying the volume by Mr. J. W. Caldwell on the constitutional 
development of Tennessee. Not that Mr. Roosevelt's volumes 
were needed to interest him primarily. The interest was there 
already — deep laid by years of reading and investigation. But 
the spark was fanned, as it were, into a sudden blaze and the 
gradual accumulations were at length ordered and shaped in 
emulation of the spirit pervading Mr. Roosevelt's work. Not all 
Tennessee history should await record by non-Tennesseans, and 
particularly that which possibly only one, native and to the manor 
born, could best and most truly interpret. 

" 'Did I have the time and leisure from the imperative de- 
mands of the duties of life,' said Mr. Caldwell once in effect, feel- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 37 

ingly, and apart from all reference to Mr. Roosevelt's work, 'the 
history of the formative period in Tennessee, particularly that of 
East Tennessee, should be finally v^ritten/ *Not finally,' replied 
his close friend and warm admirer, Mr. E. T. Sanford, playing 
upon the word, 'for after you had finished yours, I should then add 
mine.' Enough honest difference of opinion, or rather, enough 
different points of view exist for interests most varied. And may 
both of these gentlemen find the otium cum dignitate, or better, 
the relaxation amidst other professional and business pursuits to 
gather and sift and give that remnant of results which will prove 
the noblest monument to their native State and section, and to 
themselves and their interests and culture. 

*'At least the beginning has been made in the case of each, and 
with each in his individual way. Mr. Caldwell has given us a 
series of chapters on the constitutional history of Tennessee, 
which, as all who know the man and his zeal and thoroughness 
believe, excellent as they are, are but the introductory announce- 
ment to a large treatise to follow. ********* 

"Mr. Caldwell emphasizes the importance of the Scotch-Irish 
element in early Tennessee history. I believe the author is right, 
and I do not believe he is affected by distinct personal, even if 
unconscious predilection for that strong and virile race of which 
he himself is a marked and worthy representative. * * * j^ 
is in tracing the continuity in the institutions and in the people of 
Tennessee that Mr. Caldwell's book calls forth sustained atten- 
tion and ranks as a distinct contribution." 

A second edition of "Constitutional History of Tennes- 
see" was brought out by the author in 1907, the first edi- 
tion having been exhausted. In the preface he says: **I 
have called it a revised edition because, while the substance 
of the first issue has been retained, it is presented, usually 
in changed form, and frequently, in different relation; and 
because of the large amount of new matter that has been 
added." To what extent it was enlarged may be seen in 
the fact that whereas the first edition contained only about 
175, the second numbers over 400 pages. Its value is de- 
noted by its adoption as a text book, in some of the fore- 
most universities of the State. 

It is fortunate that Mr. Caldwell gave to the public a 
careful revision of his Constitutional History of Tennessee. 



38 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

The fresh presentation of the substance of the first edition, 
with the numerous authorities, make the new edition much 
more satisfactory. The chapters on the Wautauga Associa- 
tion, the State of FrankUn, and Internal Improvements and 
the State Debt are strong presentations of interesting and 
important subjects. The critical analysis of Tennessee's 
three constitutions makes the work invaluable. His argu- 
ments in favor of a revision of the Constitution of 1870 
are unanswerable. It is an excellent account of the 
growth of Tennessee's government. The vividness of 
the style imparts life to the events described. The 
political institutions of Tennessee are not treated as 
mere abstractions. They are linked with the lives of the 
great personages of the State in such a skillful and 
delightful manner as to make them appear as living 
things. Nor does the work deal with the petty squabbles 
of politicians. It is a dignified account of the develop- 
ment of the political institutions of Tennessee presented 
with accuracy and simplicity. 

• Mr. Caldwell's other book, "Sketches of the Bench and 
Bar of Tennessee" was published in 1898. The volume 
contains sketches of one hundred and thirteen lawyers, ex- 
cluding accounts of any then living. With industry he col- 
lected his facts and, with impartiality of view, presented 
them. Therein are brought before the reader in vividness 
and picturesqueness of outline the lives of most of the note- 
worthy lawyers who achieved fame in State annals or acted 
a conspicuous part at the bar. Besides indicating the char- 
acter of professional services rendered by these men and 
the political offices they filled, Mr. Caldwell has given some 
glimpses of the social life of the people among whom they 
practised, thus arguing wisely that men are not to be studied 
apart from environment and conditions. The book surveys 
almost the entire history of Tennessee, and is proportion- 
ately interesting as one is familiar with that history. In a 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 39 

fine spirit and with pronounced success, the author did a 
work which merits the grateful recognition of every Ten- 
nessean who would have the annals of his State fairly, 
clearly and faithfully recorded. 

At one time Mr. Caldwell seriously proposed to him- 
self the task of writing the history of Tennessee upon a 
more elaborate scale than that suggested in the conversa- 
tion quoted by Dr. Henneman. The portion which ap- 
pealed to him as particularly needful of record was that 
from the rise of Andrew Jackson to the civil war. To him, 
this was the golden age of Tennessee. Ramsey and Hay- 
wood wrote only of the State's beginnings. While he 
placed a high estimate upon Phelan's work, he saw that 
the later historian had compressed into a few pages this 
splendid epoch. How competent he was to deal with it 
may be discerned from his Bench and Bar sketches and 
from his historical studies and addresses found in this vol- 
ume. Duty to family and clients appealed to him as more 
urgent, and the task was foregone. 

At any rate, though the larger work remained unper- 
formed, in the years to come the volumes from his pen will 
testify to his faithful effort to contribute somewhat to the 
preservation of the rich historic material of the State. His 
State pride was limitless. He took a just pride in the 
achievements of the great sons of Tennessee, whether upon 
the national arena or in State councils. He felt a supreme 
interest in the encouragement of investigations and studies 
that would bring to light larger information touching Ten- 
nesseans who had played prominent parts in the State's 
history and had contributed to her welfare and glory. The 
impulses he started and his own accomplishments make 
his name and fame imperishable. 

Other historical writings preserved in print and of 
permanent value are the article on *' Knoxville "in Lyman 
W. Powell's book, ** Historic Towns of the South;" the 



40 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

communication in the Knoxville Tribune of June 19, 1889, 
on John Sevier, written upon the occasion of bringing the 
remains of the hero from Alabama to rest in Court Square 
at Knoxville; and the argument in the Knoxville Sentinel 
in May, 1900, showing conclusively that Admiral Farragut 
was born at Low's Ferry instead of Campbell's Station, in 
Knox County. In recognition of the merit and value of his 
historical contributions, he was elected honorary member 
of the Tennessee Historical Society and corresponding 
member of the Minnesota Historical Society. Also, in 1898, 
he was made lecturer in the University of Tennessee on 
the constitutional history of Tennessee, a position he filled 
up to his death. 

As essayist Mr. Caldwell early won an established 
place in magazine literature. Beginning with a con- 
tribution on '*The New and the Old in the South," in the 
August, 1889, Belford's Magazine, for several years articles 
of interest and value appeared from his pen in representa- 
tive periodicals. In the December, 1890, New England 
Magazine, he had an able and suggestive article on **Our 
Unclean Fiction." As the article reproduced herein from 
Fetter's Southern Magazine shows, this was a subject 
which engaged his most serious study and called forth 
strong protests against the insidious, corrupting influences 
exercised upon public morals by this species of literature. 
This fight against impure literature he kept up to the end 
of his life. In this connection it is fitting to say, it was as 
trustee of the Lawson McGee library that he placed the 
community in which he lived under heavy obligation. As 
far as the resources of the library permitted, he made it an 
earnest object to provide only such books as were whole- 
some and stimulating. For those of questionable taste 
or immoral taint he had such abhorrence that, under his 
careful scrutiny, they were rigidly rejected. 

Another article by him appeared in Belford's Magazine 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 4 1 

November, 1891,011 '*The Manufacture of Dialect." In 
this he indicated how thorough-going an East Tennessean 
he was. In dignified but unmistakable terms he con- 
demned literary work, though stamped with evidences of 
genius, that, in his view, misrepresented the mountaineers 
of his native section. In making out his case against 
Charles Egbert Craddock as drawing in large measure on 
imagination for her dialect, it must be conceded that he 
proved it by the evidence adduced from her work, ''The 
Despot of Broom Sedge Cove." The burden of the article 
is summed up in the concluding paragraph, to-wit: 

"This article is a protest against the multiplication of stories, 
long and short, which are of inferior Hterary and artistic quahty, 
and are tolerated only because the pubHc is amused by an absurd 
jumble of mutilated words, or led to believe that a spurious dia- 
lect is genuine." 

It was the superior quality of these articles, in their lit- 
erary finish and with their incisive touch, which called forth 
from Dr. Charles W. Kent, then professor of English Liter- 
ature in the University of Tennessee, a richly deserved 
tribute. In February, 1892, Dr. Kent delivered an address 
under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion of the University of Tennessee, on ''The Outlook for 
Literature in the South." It was subsequently printed in 
pamphlet form by a committee of the organization, being 
worthily regarded as entitled to preservation. Speaking of 
the literary forces at work in East Tennessee, Dr. Kent 
said: 

"At present our most serious and commendable literary work 
is being done for various magazines by J. W. Caldwell, who, in the 
midst of overcrowding legal duties, finds time to show his friends 
how much we have lost in that he did not devote his life to let- 
ters. 

Mr. Caldwell made two ventures in a domain of litera- 
ture of which few, if any, of his friends had any knowledge. 



42 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

This was as a writer of fiction. In 1893, over the nom de 
plume, '*John P. Russell," he wrote for Worthington's 
Magazine, published at Hartford, Conn., two stories, re- 
spectively *'The 'Tater-Bug Parson" and "The Dumpling 
Mine." These, according to some notes left on the margin 
of the former, were written during a Tate Springs vacation 
and at odd hours later. He says, ''I think I received a 
little less than fifty dollars for the two." The former is given 
in this volume not only as a specimen of his versatile talents, 
but for the intrinsic merit and unflagging interest that attach 
to the story. 

In giving an exhibit of Mr. Caldwell's literary produc- 
tions and scholarly activities, it remains to speak of his 
lectures on some of the church fathers. These were deliv- 
ered before the St. Andrew's Brotherhood of St. John's 
Church, and in their extent cover Athanasius, St. Augustine, 
St. Jerome, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Ambrose and 
others. Church history became to him at the outset of his 
career a subject of deep interest. Preserved among his 
papers is one in his handwriting, penned April 28, 1876. 
The heading is "Arian, Nestorian, Etc." Introductory and 
explanatory is this: ** I experience considerable difficulty 
in keeping apart — clear in my mind — the doctrines of these 
and other of the heresies of the early church; and to obviate 
this difficulty, shall endeavor to express my conceptions of 
them in a few sentences." 

His last magazine article, entitled "A Brief for Boswell," 
appeared in the July, 1905, Sewanee Review. It was ten- 
dered in response to the urgent request of the editor, Dr. 
John B. Henneman, who was reluctant to see Mr. Cald- 
well's growing absorption in legal practice and the corre- 
sponding decrease of his literary contributions. His last 
published utterance came out after his death. It is in 
"The South in the Building of the Nation," Vol. VII., and 
was written upon the insistence of the editor-in-chief of the 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 43 

volume, Dr. Henneman. The volume is devoted to a his- 
tory of the intellectual life of the South, and the subject of 
Mr. Caldwell's chapter is '*The Influence of the Bench and 
Bar upon Southern Life and Culture.'' By permission it 
is reprinted in this volume of his literary remains, and will 
rank among his best occasional pieces. 

It is noticeable that during the last ten years of his life 
he gave far less time to productive literary work than dur- 
ing the preceding decade. His legal practice steadily 
assumed larger proportions, and he came to be employed 
in litigation where the cases involved vast interests. Dur- 
ing the years of his greatest literary and historical activity 
he might have sat for the picture of the lawyer drawn by 
Maurice Thompson, who himself in his early career was a 
lawyer more addicted to writing sketches, stories and poems 
than to paying his devotions to Themis. Thompson, in 
his story, " The Banker of Bankersville," puts in the mouth 
of a farmer who admires his lawyer extravagantly, but can- 
not sympathize with his literary pursuits, this remark: 
"Colonel, you're a mighty smart man. You could go to 
Congress, if you'd stop writing them durn little pomes!" 
No doubt he had come to feel that his literary success was, 
in a way, an impediment to his legal practice. 

ORATOR. 

As an orator Mr. Caldwell was approachable by few 
men in the State or the South. His oratory was not of that 
flowery or ornate kind once more noticeable and appreci- 
ated than in these more practical days. With solid argu- 
ment he united elegant diction. His periods were always 
well rounded. His gestures were uniformly apt and grace- 
ful. His voice was rich and rhythmical. From grave 
matters he could enter upon discussions of a light charac- 
ter with rare tact and in a captivating manner. In such 



44- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

turns, his wit was sparkling and his humor infectious. 
In the banquet halls he could set the tables to roars of 
laughter. One must have been woefully ignorant who, on 
any occasion where he made a speech, left without being 
clear in his own mind of the meaning of the speaker. 

Upon the occasion of his death, Mr. George F. Milton, 
editor of the Knoxville Sentinel, thus wrote of his oratori- 
cal gifts: 

"As an orator he easily surpassed others in this region and had 
a reputation all over the country. His diction, even in an extem- 
poraneous address, was of faultless English. There w^as a mild 
humor, a ripeness of thought and an ease of manner which always 
carried his audience with him. His ideas were lofty, and few ever 
heard him without wishing that he might be in the senate of the 
United States to speak to the nation." 

As orator and after-dinner speaker, he was much in 
demand. To these invitations he responded cheerfully 
and with as much frequency as the engagements of a busy 
lawyer permitted. As has been shown, there was hardly 
a public occasion in which the University of Tennessee 
was interested when he was not called upon to participate 
in pleasing speech. Before women's clubs he spoke with 
rare felicity. One of his most notable addresses was that 
delivered before the Ossoli Circle, the oldest of the women's 
clubs of Knoxville, on ^'Aspects of American Life and Cul- 
ture." In March, 1887, at Carson and Newman College, 
he delivered an address on ^'Americanisms." It was a 
subject to which he gave serious thought and prolonged 
investigation, the fruit of which is to be seen in the article 
published in The Arena, entitled "The South is Ameri- 
can," and appearing in this volume. Addresses that left 
profound impressions were made before the graduates of 
Knoxville Female Institute, in 1889, and of East Tennes- 
see Institute, in 1896 and in 1907. In 1901, he delivered the 
annual literary address at the commencement of the Uni- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 45 

versity of the South, at Sewanee. For disinterested pub- 
lic service in the advancement of culture, no man of his 
section or State has a more creditable record. 

Upon patriotic occasions and before patriotic organiza- 
tions, he appeared in best form and distinguished himself 
always. Only a few addresses delivered under such cir- 
cumstances can be mentioned as indicative of the appre- 
ciation with which they were received. In 1890, the 
twenty- seventh anniversary of the battle of Knoxville was 
celebrated. Gen. James Longstreet was present. Fed- 
eral and Confederate veterans jointly engaged in the cele- 
bration. In behalf of the city of Knoxville, Mr. Caldwell 
welcomed the veterans. He embraced the opportunity, 
noting the fraternal spirit existing between the old soldiers 
who fought on opposite sides, to urge the cultivation of a 
better understanding between the sections. The signifi- 
cance of the occasion emphasized the importance of both 
remembering and forgetting. Participants and sympa- 
thizers on both sides were ''to remember the heroic deeds 
and the mighty works of the past, and to forget all else." 
Again, in September, 1895, he made the address of wel- 
come at the camp fire, held at Staub's opera house, when 
the national organization of the Sons of Federal Veterans 
convened for the first time upon Southern soil. If one 
will read that speech, he will find it breathing and pulsa- 
ting with the noblest sentiments of reconciliation and fra- 
ternity. In bringing about a better understanding between 
the once alienated sections of the country, he deserves to 
rank with other men of the younger generation, like 
Henry W. Grady, James Lane Allen, WilHam P. Trent 
and Thomas Nelson Page. 

There was manly dignity and no diminution of self- 
respect in the pleas he made for nationalism as separate 
from sectionalism. Let it be remembered that, first of 
all, he was East Tennessean — proud of the region of his 



46 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

nativity. Next, he was Tennessean, then Southern, and 
finally American. There was a place for locality. State, 
section and nation in his capacious heart. He never failed 
to vindicate the acts and motives that caused East Tennes- 
see to becoine divided into two hostile camps. He under- 
stood the constitution of the United States so thoroughly 
as to see how sections of his country could become arrayed 
in deadly conflict over divergent constructions of that in- 
strument. When, therefore, after submission to the arbi- 
trament of arms, the decision went against his native home 
and section, he pleaded for the acceptance of results as a 
finality. In the speech made at the camp fire, he said: 

"Every issue of the war is dead, dead, dead. I am of the 
South, all Southern. My faith in the sincerity and truth of our 
fathers who followed Jackson and Lee is invincible, and my ad- 
miration of their devotion and their valor is unbounded. This is 
the sentiment of every true Southern man; but I say to you that 
there is not in all the South one man of intelligence who would 
revive an issue of the war. Those issues were obliterated, washed 
out in the best blood of both sections, and for them there is no pos- 
sibility of resurrection." 

Possibly the two greatest speeches that he ever made 
were before the Society of the Sons of the Revolution, of 
which organization he became a member in 1894. One 
was before the New York Society, and took place in New 
York City, February 22, 1898. The other was at the 
triennial banquet of the General Society, and was delivered 
at Washington, D.C., April 19, 1902. The subject of the 
former was ''The Patriotism of the South." The latter, 
on ''The South in the Revolution," is published in this 
volume. Each was widely noticed in the press of the 
country, and elicited much favorable comment. The de- 
mand for copies of the speeches became so insistent on 
the part of friends that he printed them in pamphlet form. 
Explanatory of their publication he says: 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 47 

"These speeches are printed at the request of a number of 
friends. The most pleasing fact connected with them is the cor- 
diahty with which they were received by audiences largely com- 
posed of Northern men. The Washington speech was in the 
main extemporaneous and is printed from revised stenographic 
notes. The New York speech is not reproduced in full, because 
parts of it were, in substance, repeated in the later address. In- 
completeness is unavoidable in after-dinner speeches and I have 
made very few amendments of the two now presented." 

It was in the speech, *'The Patriotism of the South/' 
that, without mincing words or cloaking views, he main- 
tained the position and declared the policy of the South 
with reference to the race problem. He affirmed that the 
dangers imminent in the South from the presence of the 
negro did not compare with those confronting the North 
from the "vast accumulations of filth and offal" dumped 
annually on her shores from foreign countries. In the 
latter speech, addressing himself to the dangers charged 
as besetting Southern civilization from the great illiteracy 
of her population, he said: 

"But you say the South is illiterate and unprogressive. I 
affirm that the average mountaineer of Tennessee or North Car- 
olina, who to the Northern mind is the incarnation of ignorance 
and uncouthness, is familiar with public questions, loves liberty 
more than life, is the most independent of human beings, and is 
absolutely loyal to the Union and the Constitution. The South is 
a reservoir of Americanism, from which the republic may draw in 
every emergency. Its patriotism is without alloy, and its cour- 
age will never falter." 

Of the Washington address, a correspondent of the 
Atlanta Constitution said: 

"The orator of the evening was the Hon. J. W. Caldwell, of 
Knoxville, Tenn., one of the most cultured and fluent speakers 
of the South. Mr. Caldwell was at his best and before he had 
been on his feet five minutes he had captured his audience. His 
well modulated voice, his nicely chosen phrases and his easy, 
graceful style were as rare as they were deHghtfulIy received. 
Proudly did he point to the heroic deeds of those who went from 



48 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

the peaceful homes in his section into the heat of battle. Through- 
out his address he kept pleasantly and invitingly before his hearers 
the great possibilities of the South in every way." 

In recounting this phase of Mr. Caldwell's life and 
activity, two other occasions may be cited on which he 
shone with brilliancy. One was when he acted as toast- 
master upon the tender of a banquet to Admiral W. S. 
Schley by the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce on Febru- 
ary 5, 1902. The other was when, five years later, he 
acted in a similar capacity for the Knoxville Young Men's 
Christian Association. It was upon the occasion of 
beginning a campaign for the raising of ^60,000 for the 
enlargement of that organization's work. The late Sena- 
tor E. W. Carmack, of whom he was a warm personal 
friend and political supporter, was the leading speaker of 
the evening. 

CIVIC LIFE. 

In promoting the public welfare through unselfish ser- 
vice, Mr. Caldwell was also active through the contribu- 
tions made to the daily press. His ability to wield a force- 
ful and graceful pen, his warm interest in current questions, 
and his sane views of public morals and conduct made him 
a valuable ally of editors in molding sound public opinion. 
The early years of his professional life were much given to 
the writing of editorials. The old Knoxville Tribune was 
a medium through which he reached the public. In a series 
of editorials entitled ** Revenue Reform," he evinced care- 
ful study of economic questions. When Grover Cleveland's 
first administration closed, under the caption, ''The Demo- 
cratic Leader," he reviewed the administration with critical 
acumen and appreciative comment. A noted editorial was 
one that appeared January 31, 1888, ''More Blood." A 
violent encounter had taken place in Knoxville, instigated 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 49 

by a ruffianly spirit, and death claimed a victim. This part 
of the editorial utterance cannot be repeated too frequently: 

"Such conduct was wholly irrational and inhuman, and men 
capable of it are enemies of society; and society can not too severe- 
ly punish them. Such men have been the curse of this commu- 
nity. They have time and again stained our good name and dis- 
graced us by acts of violence and brutalism. The interests of so- 
ciety imperatively demand plain speaking and vigorous action on 
this subject. We must have an end of violence and bloodshed. 
Brutalism must be put down. The law must crush these men 
who think themselves greater than the law. We decry dueling, 
but dueling better a thousand times than this. There are many 
who think that for every affront, every insult, every criticism of 
themselves, the answer must be a blow or a stab or a shot. They 
habitually put the law under their feet. We must put them 
under the law and grind them to powder. Violence is the law 
and attribute of beasts and savages. If we have savages in our 
midst, the sooner the law makes an end of them the better." 

When the Tennessee Press Association met in Knoxville 
in the summer of 1884, it fell to his lot to respond to the 
first toast at the banquet given in its honor, '^ The Tennes- 
see Press." Running through it was the delightful humor 
which permeated his every public utterance. At the end 
of his career he was associated with the press, being a 
director of the Knoxville Sentinel Company, and its legal 
counselor. One of the last plans projected by him was 
the publication of a series of articles on the necessity of a 
new constitution for the State, a subject about which, at 
intervals, he had written copiously and luminously for the 
press. 

The last distinct service of a public character rendered 
by Mr. Caldwell was as chairman of the committee to draft 
a new charter for Knoxville. As an authority on constitu- 
tional and municipal law, by common consent, the work 
of preparing the instrument devolved upon him. He ad- 
dressed himself earnestly to the task, but it had been cast 
only in the rough stage when death overtook him and left 

the work to other hands. 
4 



50 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

CHURCH AND HOME. 

AH the years of his wedded life Mr. Caldwell was an 
attendant upon Prayer-book worship, and for twenty-one 
years was a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church in St. John's Parish. He was constant in devotions, 
regular in attendance and faithful in service. 

Of Presbyterian ancestry and rearing, of Puritanical 
inclination and culture, of Scotch-Irish fibre and grain, it 
is readily seen that his leanings would not be toward lax 
living or corporate domination. Catholic he was in senti- 
ment and culture, but content with the name "Protestant 
Episcopal" and with its implications. 

Indeed his tastes and habits were rather congregational 
or parochial, than diocesan or national. He was a ves- 
tryman of St. John's for fifteen years, and senior war- 
den for the last twelve years thereof, down to his death; 
and in this office and service he found pleasure and the 
Church great profit. To the interest and welfare of the 
congregation he gave himself freely; and his constant 
and faithful attention to the affairs of the parish received 
its grateful appreciation. But though often chosen as a 
parish delegate his attendance on the Diocesan Conven- 
tions was occasional only; and he was satisfied with a 
single week at the Washington General Convention, and 
did not attend another. 

The man was dominated by his moral and religious 
qualities. His habits of thought were orthodox and he 
was a loyal churchman of abundant labors; but his in- 
clinations were not sacerdotal or ritualistic. To him re- 
ligion was rather personal than corporate, an evangel 
rather than an organism. 

For years he taught a large Bible Class of young women 
which came to be one of the features of St. John's, and at- 
tracted scores of eager students to the Church every Sun- 
day morning to the great edification of the congregation. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 5 1 

He felt and thought as expressed by the great Erskine, 
his unconscious antetype, that there is a real connection 
between happiness and the knowledge and love of God; 
and that the object of true religion is so to present His 
character as that men may comprehend the divine order 
and feel their affections brought into harmony with it, 
through necessary spiritual renovation; and that Christ- 
ianity, in its adoption of the principles of natural religion 
and its lively representation of the perfect character of God, 
develops in man a character suited for and aspiring to ob- 
tain true and immortal happiness, and has given to the 
world its best and highest civilization. 

So thinking and feeling he worshiped the Lord in the 
beauty of holiness. Ever cherishing a lively and steadfast 
hope in the abundance of His mercy, he showed forth His 
praise not only with his lips, but in his life, by giving him- 
self to His service and by walking before Him and his fel- 
low-man in righteousness all the days of his life. 

He was married to Miss Katherine Moore Barnard, of 
Huntsville, Alabama, November 20, 1883. Mrs. Caldwell 
is a lineal descendant of Major John Barnard, conspicuous 
in the Revolutionary War, and of Dr. David Moore, one of 
the most noted of Alabama's ante-bellum public men. 
Three children were born as the fruit of this union, viz: 
Mr. J. Barnard, and Misses Hattie and Katherine Caldwell. 
The other immediate surviving members of his family are 
a brother, John D. Caldwell, long associated with him in 
the practice of law, and his sister Blanche, Mrs. Samuel 
H. McNutt. His home life was beautiful, a model in gen- 
tle ministrations and kindly consideration. In the bosom of 
his family and in the recesses of his library he found his 
highest satisfaction and greatest joys. His health was never 
robust, and he rarely mingled in social events save as these 
partook in a measure of a public character. Whenever, at 
rare intervals, he was in social gatherings at the homes of 



52 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

friends, his presence and conversation evoked gayety and 
laughter. His sparkling humor and bright repartee danced 
across the playful surface of things like ripples upon the 
sunny bosom of the stream. 

THE END. 

After a brief illness from pneumonia he died at his 
residence on Main Avenue in Knoxville, January i8, 1909. 
It is safe to say that no death in the history of the city was 
ever more sincerely and universally mourned. Various 
and numerous vy^ere the manifestations of public grief. The 
loss was felt to be irreparable. From St. John's Church, 
the burial service being conducted by the rector. Rev. 
Walter C. Whitaker, and the rector emeritus. Dr. Samuel 
Ringgold, the body was borne to Old Gray Cemetery to 
sleep the sleep of the just. 

Thus in the prime of his sterling manhood, death 
struck low Joshua W. Caldwell. Measure him as one 
will, there was to be found in him the elements of well- 
rounded character. Uniformly in his bearing and inter- 
course, he presented the best type of American manhood. 
In his mental endowments and scholarly attainments, he 
was the embodiment of rigid intellectual training and of a 
rare culture. In his professional experience and equip- 
ment, he stood forth a living example of the high-toned, 
well-equipped jurist and of the faithful, zealous advocate. 
In his literary productions and historical researches, he 
exhibited talents and pursued methods which do credit to 
his State and section. In his oratorical ability and excellence, 
he will take rank with the most famous and influential ora- 
tors who adorn the annals of the State. In his patriotism, 
there was a breadth and generosity that extended to every 
foot of American soil. In his citizenship, there was illus- 
trated a catholicity and a disinterestedness which were 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 53 

always ready to extend the helping hand to any cause that 
meant the uplift of the community. In his church life, 
there was unfailingly the exhibition of the finest fruits of 
liberal orthodoxy, and of those cardinal virtues. Faith, 
Hope and Charity. 

The life of such a man, for its perpetuation needs no 
memorial of printed page or polished stone or bronze 
statue. Joshua Caldwell has left a name for magnanimity 
and for spotless integrity which will remain indelibly 
stamped upon the City and the State, to both of which he 
gave unstinted love and loyal service. Such a life is a 
priceless heritage. It has dignified and ennobled all who 
have come within the sphere of its influence. His virtues 
will live and shine in all the years to come, and to them 
ingenuous youth of Tennessee will be pointed for an 
example worthy of their manly emulation. 




CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES.* 
I. 

HEN the war between the States began I was a very little boy, 
and yet I think I remember the events of my own experience 
of that terrible time more vividly than those of any other period 
of my life. My friends, often jestingly, sometimes seriously, 
deny the accuracy of my statements, but they do me injustice. My 
experiences were not important or startling, but some of them were of 
a kind to interest my own children, and it is for them that I am mak- 
ing this brief record. 

My father was a lawyer in a little town in Tennessee which bore the 
imposing name of Athens. He was of the Scotch-Irish race, a strict 
Presbyterian, and a man with an undeniable gift of eloquence. His 
ancestors for many generations had been preachers or elders of the Pres- 
byterian Church, and one of his brothers was the pastor of the church 
of that denomination at Athens. His father was the ruling elder (I use 
the definite article purposely) of a rural Presbyterian Church in another 
county. A grand old man was my paternal grandfather. His early 
education had been somewhat neglected, but his natural abilities were 
considerable; and, being fond of geology, he became very learned in that 
science, and discovered nearly all the mineral deposits that have since 
been developed in East Tennessee. As this section was then remote 
from the centers of industry and trade, and not touched by any impor- 
tant railroad, my grandfather gratified his scientific tastes without sub- 
stantial benefits to himself. Indeed, he devoted to his favorite pursuit 
the greater part of a moderate fortune, and in after years strangers reaped 
the reward of his labor and expenditures. He was a strong anti-slavery 
man and an enthusiastic promoter of the scheme of colonizing the negroes 
in Liberia. If I am not in error, there is a town in that struggling repub- 
lic which bears his name. I have in my possession many of his letters, 
copies made with his own hand, for he was a prudent and cautious, as 
well as copious correspondent. These letters afford me much entertain- 
ment, despite the fact that they are mainly devoted to moral and religious 
topics. Sometimes he writes of politics, but always from the "amen 
corner." His spelling is often more original than accurate, and he was 

♦Written for the amusement of his children. ( <;(;) 



56 CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 

particularly fond of writing to the President of the United States. I 
have not a few of his letters addressed to that august functionary, most 
of them relating to Liberia. Of course he was not a slaveholder, but 
upon one occasion it came to his attention that a negro girl was to be 
sold under circumstances of peculiar hardship, and he attended the 
sale and bought her. I remember her well. Her name was Ida and 
she was of the race known as "Guinea nigger." She could hardly 
express the commonest feeling or fact in English, and she was a marvel 
of ugliness. I do not think she was much over four feet in stature. She 
had almost no forehead, but her lips surpassed any others that I have ever 
seen. I am sure that each of them was an inch thick. My grandfather, 
being opposed to slavery, it was of course necessary for him to prove 
his principles by his treatment of Miss Ida. She had not intelligence 
enough to be given her freedom, and so she became a highly privileged 
attache of the family. Most negroes are good natured and so was Miss 
Ida at times, but as a rule she was quite otherwise. In other families 
negroes were somewhat positively corrected for misconduct, but my 
grandfather's household stood in awe of this ugly little "Guinea nigger," 
and to have administered to her the punishment which she frequently 
deserved would have broken the good old man's heart. She did as she 
pleased, and when the war was over she naturally refused to yield her 
position of advantage, and remained the tyrant of the family till the day 
of her death. She was the cook, but the remainder of the household 
were her servants. I do not know what she died of unless it was an 
excess of ugliness, for it seemed to me that both in temper and in appear- 
ance she grew uglier every year. 

My maternal grandfather also was a Scotch-Irishman and a Pres- 
byterian Elder, but he lived in Virginia, and was admitted, of course, to 
belong to one of the first families. He was at heart opposed to slavery, 
but he had many negroes whom he dared not set free because he knew 
the fate that would befall them. He lived in a beautiful valley under 
the shadow of the Cumberland Mountains far away from any city, and 
in my childhood it was a delightful adventure to make the long over- 
land trip to his home. When we did not go in his carriage, for we could 
not afford one of our own, we traveled in an old-fashioned red stage 
coach with four strong horses that went in a swinging gallop when it 
was safe to do so, and sometimes when it was not safe. Then when 
we got there, the cold spring, the long pump logs, the forty acres of apple 



CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 57 

and peach orchard, the hundred cherry trees, the innumerable currant 
and raspberry bushes, the inexhaustible pantry of preserves and jellies, 
the partridge nests we found in the meadows, the fresh venison the 
hunters brought down from the mountains, the petting and spoiling of 
my dear, sweet-faced and loving grandmother, all these made the old 
home a veritable paradise to a boy. In all the world there was no sweet- 
er, purer Christian home. The rambling old house was redolent of 
peace and love and happiness. But, alas, it is gone forever, the dear 
grandfather and grandmother have another home now; the *'old place" 
is the possession of a stranger. 

From my Virginia grandfather I inherited a good old Scripture name. 
For the present we will say it was Jesse — though it was not. I remem- 
ber also that he gave me a bright yellow or claybank pony, and along 
with it a very black negro boy who was named for Alexander the Great. 
I rode the pony when I was too young, and have always suspected that 
I acquired in that way a physical peculiarity which afterwards led me 
into personal difficulty with other boys who would call me bow-legged. 
From the negro boy I learned much that was bad. He was my senior 
by several years, and wonderfully versed in evil things. He called me 
"Mars Jesse," and was never wholly oblivious of the fact that I was 
his master, but his superior age and cunning made him in many things 
my master. I have never ceased to regret that at this early and im- 
pressionable age I came so much in contact with this vile creature. I 
shall tell you presently how my negro and my pony parted company 
with me. 

We had a beautiful home in a grove of chestnut trees on a high hill 
overlooking the town, a sort of acropolis of this modern Athens. Near 
by there was a big mill pond to fish in, and even to this day my heart 
thrills at the memory of the beautiful sun perch and the big black perch 
that sometimes rewarded my impatient angling. There was no more 
delightful time than the early fall when the first frost came and the big 
chestnuts began to drop from the tall trees. Life is well worth living 
to a boy who can get up long before breakfast on a crisp November 
morning, and running from tree to tree, gather his cap full of big round 
delicious chestnuts. I have had some little successes in the world, but 
I am sure I would give them all for one more November morning under 
the big chestnut trees of the home of my childhood. But the childhood 
days are gone and the chestnut trees, too, and just the other day 1 saw 



58 CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 

an ugly red and yellow modern house displaying all its hideousness of 
color and shape, on the very spot where the biggest of the old trees 
stood. What barbarism to sacrifice such a tree for such a house! 

I think it was just about the time the war began that I got my pony, 
perhaps a little before. My father was a member of the Legislature 
that voted Tennessee out of the Union; but he opposed the measure. 
Later, however, he went with the State and was an unsuccessful candi- 
date for the Confederate Congress. 

My first recollection of the war was when our Athens brass band, 
equipped in brand-new gray uniforms, all be-gilt, started to Virginia. 
They played Dixie as they marched through the streets, and some of 
the spectators cheered and some did not, for many of the people of East 
Tennessee stood firmly by the Union. Indeed, thirty thousand of them 
enlisted in the Federal Army and fought well, so that for many years 
after the war we prospered on bounty and pension money. 

The band went, and then after the first battle of Manassas it came 
back, but the leader was dead. He was not killed in the battle, but 
died of consumption, the exposure of the campaign hastening his death. 
The first war event after that which I can now recall is the coming of 
General Forrest to Athens. He was not then the famous leader that 
he afterwards became, and if he had been I should have paid very little 
attention to him, for my attention was wholly taken up by a boy who was 
with him. I went with my father to visit the General, and there we saw 
this boy. He could not have been over four feet high, but he had on 
a full Confederate uniform and a big slouch hat. Around his waist was 
a real belt and a real pistol in a real scabbard. He strutted about the 
room in the most lordly manner, and as he walked the cup of my envy 
was filled when I saw that he had two brass spurs. Now and then he 
was good enough to look at me in a patronizing way, but most of the 
time he whistled softly and made marks with a piece of chalk on his 
pistol scabbard. Once I heard him swear a good round soldier's oath. 
I do not know who he was. He vanished soon from my sight on a 
little bay pony, but he was immovably fixed in my memory. I am sure 
that in all my life no other person has so much impressed me as this 
boy with the uniform, the pistol and the chalk. 

It was in the year 1862 that I saw this wonderful boy. It 
was a long time before anything else of importance occurred. 
I was always on the lookout for more boy soldiers, but none ever came. 



CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 59 

I remember, however, a ludicrous incident that occurred about this 
time. The only railroad in East Tennessee ran through Athens, and 
the passing trains were nearly always loaded with Confederate soldiers; 
and whenever I could I went to the station to see them. I recall that 
the tops of the freight cars were nearly always covered with soldiers. 
One day when I was at the station a train load of soldiers was detained 
there for an hour or more. The soldiers were hungry, as Confederate 
soldiers always were, and people of all colors came to sell them bread 
and cakes and pies. Among these venders of edibles on this occasion 
were two very tall, sallow country girls carrying between them an old 
splint basket filled with pies. A soldier bought one of the pies and 
declared it excellent. Thereupon a purse was made up and the entire 
lot of pies purchased. The girls generously threw in the old basket 
and went away rather hurriedly. The pies were distributed with much 
jest among the purchasers, and the soldiers settled themselves to enjoy 
the unwonted delicacies. Almost immediately there was an outburst 
of profanity and laughter. The top pies were all right, but the lower 
ones had nothing in them but uncooked lima beans. There was a rush 
in the direction in which the girls had gone, but they were nowhere to 
be found. The soldiers were too much amused to be angry. I after- 
wards saw the girls, but never saw them sell any more pies. Evidently 
they were discreet as well as skillful. 

It was in 1863 that Vicksburg fell. Many of our Tennessee sol- 
diers were with the ill-fated Pemberton, and upon being paroled came 
home. One day there was a celebration in town, and a large crowd 
gathered in from the county. I was down on the square in the fore- 
noon and saw, among others, a private soldier who was riding a spot- 
ted mustang pony, and apparently drinking freely. Some one shouted 
"mule meat" as this man passed, referring to the diet of the Confed- 
erate soldiers at Vicksburg, whereupon he turned and furiously cursed 
the speaker. A little later I went home and sat on the front fence watch- 
ing the crowds that passed. Presently along came the man on the spot- 
ted horse. He was now waving a large new Confederate flag and was 
very drunk. Not far from where I sat he met a Confederate oflScer 
whom, as I now remember, he accused of having been one of those who 
had taunted him with eating mule meat at Vicksburg. A hot quarrel 
ensued with much noise and swearing, and I was called up to the house, 
where I posted myself at a window to watch the proceedings. I think 



6o CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 

the officer was sober, while the soldier was certainly drunk. In a few 
minutes the two disputants, accompanied by a number of other persons, 
moved from the street into a vacant lot, of which I had a plain view from 
my window. The officer, accompanied by one man, walked a few paces 
ahead of the private. Presently they all stopped and the disputants 
faced each other. They were about a hundred yards from me and in 
plain view. I saw instantly now that it was to be a duel. As they raised 
their pistols I involuntarily covered my face with my hands. There 
were two reports, close together, and when I looked again the officer 
was walking coolly away, while a great crowd was surging around the 
place where the soldier had stood. A few minutes later a number of 
men came along the street carrying the poor drunken soldier. Fasci- 
nated by the horrible thing, I ran down to the street, but only to turn 
and run back again, wild with terror, for while I stood staring over the 
fence the man with horrible moanings and inarticulate mutterings, sound- 
ing like oaths, died, and they laid him almost at my feet. It was my 
first sight of death and my first knowledge of what dueling meant. For 
many days and nights I thought and dreamed only of this cruel thing. 
I saw the man die again and again, and was forever hearing his dying 
groans and drunken mutterings. This must have occurred in August 
or September, 1863. And now I began to see that things were going 
badly. My Tennessee grandfather had remained a Union man, while, 
as I have said, my father went with the South. I heard them talking 
at home about Burnside, a yankee General, as we called him. Before 
long I heard that General Burnside was at Knoxville, the metropolis 
of East Tennessee, fifty miles east of Athens. The negroes, of whom 
my mother owned a few, were much excited and were frequently out 
of quarters at night in bold disregard of the law and defiance of the *'pat- 
teroll." I know now that Burnside came to Knoxville in September, 
1863; that about two months later the great battle of Chickamauga 
was fought at Chattanooga, fifty miles west of Athens. Soon after that 
battle. General Longstreet, whose corps had been detached from Gen- 
eral Lee's army in Virginia and sent to General Bragg at Chattanooga, 
passed Athens on his way to Knoxville; but I do not remember to have 
seen anything of his army. I remember, however, that one Novem- 
ber afternoon I went home after a ride in company with my wicked 
mentor Alec, and- found everything in confusion. Old Frank, my 
father's big bay horse, stood saddled before the door. Inside I found 



CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 6l 

my mother in tears, but busily packing a pair of saddle bags. My father 
was sorting papers and superintending the arrangement of his law library 
and office furniture, which had just been brought up from his office. 
Then it was that I first heard of General Sherman. He was following 
Longstreet from Chattanooga to Knoxville, where the Confederate 
General was then besieging General Burnside. In a few minutes a 
messenger came hurrying up from town and my father, receiving our 
tearful farewells, mounted and rode away in hot haste. He was hardly 
out of sight when far away on the west we saw Sherman's advance guard. 
I do not know how many men General Sherman had, but his army was 
large enough to fill my eyes and my imagination, too. By nightfall the 
town and its environs were brilliant with camp fires. Wherever one 
turned hundreds of fires met the eye. I need not say that we were ex- 
cessively frightened. My mother and I were alone with the slaves until 
the coming of a lady friend, and this addition to our numbers did not 
greatly aid us to a sense of security. We sent our negro man Ned, who 
had all the good qualities of his own race, and of all other races, for that 
matter, to one of our neighbors, who was a Union man, with a request 
to secure a guard for us. Ned came back bringing a big man in a Cap- 
tain's uniform. The Captain was friendly enough, but made us aware 
of the fact that he knew we were rebels. We made much of the Cap- 
tain, as was natural under the circumstances, and I remember distinctly 
the commingling of gratitude and fear in my own feeling for him. 

Our means of subsistence, now that my father was gone, consisted 
mainly of the contents of our smoke-house, which stood in the rear of 
the dwelling. The weather had been cold enough for killing hogs and 
the meat of such swine as we had possessed was salted away in the smoke- 
house. 

Soon after supper, while the Captain and I were standing on the 
front porch looking out over the sea of camp fires that stretched away 
on every hand, a little negro girl came running up to us very much fright- 
ened and informed us that "Dey wuz somebody done broke into de 
'moke-house." The Captain rushed into the house, seized his pistol 
and ran toward the smoke-house. I followed closely. As we passed 
the party of negroes huddled near the front of the smoke-house we heard 
the sounds of rapid retreat in the rear of the structure. The Captain 
fired into the air and we ran around the house. Two or three indis- 
tinct figures were vanishing in the darkness. The Captain tried one 



62 CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 

more shot in the air, and then when a candle was brought we entered 
the smoke-house. Alas for our hopes! The rafters had been garnished 
with many sides and hams and shoulders, but now only one shoulder 
and one side remained. The marauders had dug under the back foun- 
dation of the smoke-house, and thus it was that for many weeks we lived 
almost exclusively on corn batter cakes. 

I do not know how long it was before Sherman's army returned from 
Knoxville. I could look into the histories and find the time, but I am 
trying to write only my own recollections. I know that when the army 
reached Athens again my mother had a very mortifying experience. 
There was one of Sherman's Generals who was a distant kinsman of 
hers, and on returning to Athens this General sent her word that he 
would, pay her a visit. You must know that by this time the Southern 
people had very little to wear, and at our house we had almost nothing 
to eat. My mother's best dress at this particular time was of checked 
cotton goods, such as had been the common wear of slave women before 
the war. Arrayed in this she stood upon the veranda to receive her 
distinguished kinsman. The General had never seen her before, and 
I recall with sympathy even at this time her embarrassment as he halted 
his suite and asked her if the lady of the house could be seen. The 
General was mightily embarrassed in return when she declared herself 
the lady in question, and while he was very cordial and called her cousin 
it was some time before they could enjoy a genuine laugh over the mis- 
understanding. The General could not remain with us himself, but sent 
us two young soldiers, one of whom was a corporal. I remember that 
his name was Jim, and that in the two or three days he was our guard 
we became great friends. General Sherman marched away taking my 
friend Jim with him, and then our hard times began in earnest. Sher- 
man's army was not all that went away, for on the morning after its 
departure our own Ned came bright and early to my mother's door to 
tell her, as he put it: '*The other niggers is all run away." 

It was too true. They had gone, taking everything they could carry 
with them. My boy Alec made one of the party, and my pony also. 
To this day we have never seen nor heard of any of our slaves. We do 
not know where they went nor what became of them. They took our 
wagon and my pony, and I know not what else, and disappeared utterly. 

This was the corn batter cake time. We had corn cakes week after 
week three times a day, and frequently we had nothing else. We made 



CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 63 

coffee of dried sweet potatoes and sweetened it with sorghum, which at 
this time was famous in the South as "long sweetninV' sugar being 
"short sweetnin'." We had one shoulder of meat left, and this we kept 
carefully for a rainy day. Together with half a bushel of sweet pota- 
toes, it formed our reserve supply, all of which was stored in a box under 
the sofa in the parlor, an apartment which had become otherwise wholly 
superfluous and was kept carefully locked at night. An incident which 
occurred at this time and which is indelibly impressed on my memory, 
will show to what straits we were reduced. 

When our slaves ran away we secured from a friend the services of 
a colored woman and her son, the last being about seven or eight years 
old. One day in the batter cake period we were fortunate enough to 
secure a chicken and some "middlin" meat. The family was thus able 
to enjoy the unspeakable luxury of fried chicken. It so happened that 
I, being ignorant of the important event thus occurring at home, was 
late for dinner. My mother saved me that piece of the chicken which 
contains the breast bone. It was placed on the table, the sole tenant of 
the big dish which I had not seen before in many days. As children 
often do, I determined to save the chicken till the last. That is to say, 
I ate my corn cakes first. The little negro boy was waiting on me while 
his mother was in the kitchen. The boy behaved himself with great 
propriety until I was in the very act of helping myself to the piece of 
chicken, and then, before my astonished and indignant eyes, and from 
under my outstretched arm, he seized the chicken with his hand and 
like a ravening animal that he was, devoured it in a twinkling and then 
began to cry. I sprang to my feet with the impulse to strike the boy 
who had both cruelly and impudently, as I construed it, robbed me, but 
child as I was, the humor of the proceeding overcame me and I broke 
into a loud laugh. I have rarely been so disappointed as when I lost 
the fried chicken; nor have I ever seen anything so ludicrous and yet 
pitiful as the boy gnawing the chicken like a wild beast and at the same 
time blubbering in anticipation of punishment. My feelings were a 
little modified when I learned that my mother's sense of equity had pre- 
viously allotted him a drumstick, so that he had two pieces while I had 
none. It was for that reason that my serenity was not disturbed when 
half an hour later his mother, having heard of the tragic occurrence, 
took him behind the kitchen and gave him a most vigorous thrashing 
with an old bridle rein. 



64 CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 

Athens now became part of the debatable territory. Sometimes the 
Confederates held it and sometimes the Federals. At one time there 
was a Federal garrison in the courthouse, and one day while we were 
at dinner a company of ragged Confederate cavalrymen charged into 
the square surrounding the temple of justice. We heard the rapid firing 
and ran out to see what was the matter. We were nearly half a mile 
from the square and high above it. Presently we heard a queer, sharp 
singing sound and then another like it, and then a loud rap on the side 
of the house. By this time we discovered that we were in the line of 
fire of the Confederates on the opposite side of the courthouse, and we 
made haste to get under cover. Ere long we were joined by a number 
of our neighbors who were Union men and were keeping out of the way 
of the Confederates. The zip, zip of the big musket balls continued 
until the Confederates were repulsed. Then I went down town with 
some of our friends and had an attack of the shivers. The first thing 
we saw in the square was a huddle of old rags and an old slouch hat. 
When we went up to this we found a dead Confederate soldier. And 
to be convinced that there was no romance in war it was necessary only 
to look at the poor fellow. I have in these later days seen many tramps 
and beggars; duty has now and then called me to the abode of the 
most abject and squalid poverty; but never have I seen a human being 
so ill clad, so utterly unwashed in person and in dress as this dead sol- 
dier. As we stood looking at him, a musket was fired from the court- 
house and our party retreated with much more rapidity than dignity. 

A school was started in our neighborhood, to which were sent the 
children of most of the Southern sympathizers of the town. I went, of 
course, and recall now the sense of pride that I experienced when I was 
considered worthy of promotion to McGufFey's Third Reader. 

We were not very lonely at home, for we had many friends and they 
made our house a gathering place, so that not infrequently the corn 
cakes and the potato coffee ran painfully low. We had one young lady 
friend of great vivacity and strongly inclined to elocution. Her favor- 
ite recitation was "Lord Ullin's Daughter," which, as I now recall, was 
one of many gems of poesy collected in the McGufFey Readers. I do 
not think I have ever read the poem, but in the years 1863 and 1864 I 
heard this lady recite it so much, and I doubt not, so badly, that it was 
not until recently that I forgot any part of it. 

I went home from school one afternoon and found two big army 



CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 65 

wagons at the front door. They were loaded with my father's books, 
and I did not fully comprehend the nature of the proceeding, even when 
I was told that the weazened little old man in charge was a confiscation 
agent. I heard his men call him Mr. Homer, which was his real name, 
for I knew his sons in after years, and somehow or other he got into the 
place in my mental storehouse where I put the Greek Homer; and I can- 
not for my life keep from picturing the author of the IHad (if there was 
an author) as this little old confiscation agent gone blind. 

I do not know whether it was because the corn cakes and the potato 
coffee were giving out entirely and we were likely to become objects 
of public charity, or for some other reason, that in the spring of 1864 
we were suddenly ordered out of the house and out of the Federal lines. 
There was a considerable party of us. We went by rail to Knoxville, 
and the adventure of riding on the cars almost consoled me for the loss 
of the home which I have never entered since that day. At Knoxville 
we were told by our friends that at the station, sixteen miles away, where 
the Union outposts were, we should all be searched and deprived of our 
valuables. Now, the valuables possessed by my mother and myself 
were my father's watch and a ten dollar gold piece. These were bestowed 
about my person and the most obtuse observer would have had no dif- 
ficulty in discovering them, for I am sure that I did not at any time allow 
thirty consecutive seconds to elapse without feeling to see whether I had 
lost them. When we came to the searching place, which was a crazy 
old wooden house, which in this year of grace 1896 is still there, and 
apparently not more crazy than it was thirty-two years ago, the ladies 
were met by two very unprepossessing persons of their own sex, and 
conducted to the interior to be searched. One of these searching ladies 
remarked as she disappeared that she would "search that young 'un in 
a minit." The offensive term "young 'un" indicated myself and caused 
me no little indignation. The other boys of the party were searched 
by men, and I mentally determined to leave nothing untried to escape 
the threatened indignity and to save my valuables. And so when the 
ugly woman again appeared I fled. The woman made some hasty 
steps in pursuit, but soon gave out and called on some lounging soldiers 
to seize me. I recollect that the soldiers only laughed at her and made 
some remarks which were not elegant, and from which I inferred that 
the lady was not very highly esteemed by them. 

Having saved the watch and the money I awaited the coming of our 
party and got into the ambulance with my mother. 



66 CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 

This ambulance was rather a luxurious vehicle. It was brand new, 
with shining curtains and soft leather cushions. A very black man with 
a new uniform and very bright buttons was the driver, and displayed 
great and just pride in the two big black mules that carried us along at 
swinging trot. 

I asked the driver where we should meet the Confederate flag of 
truce which we understood had been sent to receive us. He replied that 
he reckoned it would be at ''Painter Springs." And sure enough at 
Panther Springs we met our friends, beholding them with much embar- 
rassment and dismay. I had supposed that we were to go from one 
ambulance to another equally as good. When the black driver said 
with a grin, "Yanner come de Rebel ambilance," I stood up to look for 
them. There they were sure enough. I looked in open-eyed amaze- 
ment while the driver chuckled and grinned. The first of the Confed- 
erate "ambulances'* may be described as representative. It was what 
we called in East Tennessee before the war a "mover's wagon." It 
was partly covered with an old mildewed and muddy tilt which was too 
short, and drooped and flapped between the first two hoops. It was 
drawn by a big bony horse and a little bony horse, the last lacking at 
least a foot of the stature of the associate. Both horses appeared to be 
in the last stages of starvation, and both carried their heads as nearly 
between their legs as possible. The harness was tied in many places 
with rags and leather straps, the first to protect the bones of the poor 
beasts and the last to hold the decaying contrivances together. 

Beside the little horse walked a long, thin man expectorating with 
absolute and incessant regularity. He had an old slouch hat, no coat 
and but a single yarn suspender or "gallus," and when I became inti- 
mate with him, I found that this "gallus" was fastened at each end 
with a long thorn. There was a brindled cur dog under the wagon, 
keeping company with the tar bucket that swung from the coupling 
pole. 

With the usual courtesies, I suppose, we were transferred to the cus- 
tody of our friends. My particular party was consigned to the front 
wagon. It is not necessary to say that it had no springs and no cush- 
ioned seats. We sat on straw in the wagon bed, and bumped along at a 
rate hardly exceeding two miles an hour. It did not take me long to 
tire of this, and so I craved and received permission to get out and walk 
with the driver. I do not think it ever occurred to the driver to get into 



CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 67 

the wagon, indeed I do not think it would have been possible for him to 
do so without doubhng himself up. 

We walked and talked together many miles during the succeeding 
days of travel. I have tried to remember something that we said or that 
we talked about, but cannot. I only remember in a general way that we 
reached terms of considerable intimacy, that there was a genuine intellect- 
ual fellowship and equahty between us, and that it became one of my 
chief ambitions to wear a single suspender fastened with thorns. 

At last we got to Bristol on the Virginia border, where I bade farewell 
to my long friend the driver, whom I have never seen since that day. My 
mother having heard that my father was with General Early^s army in 
the Valley of Virginia, we went by train to Lynchburg. There we found 
no trace of my father and could hear nothing of him. The letters inform- 
ing him of our expulsion had not yet reached him. Not knowing where 
else to go, we went back to Abingdon, where some relations kindly received 
us. 

It was great good fortune for us, when a few weeks later my father's 
command was ordered to Abingdon. He was able to secure for us many 
comforts which we had theretofore sadly missed. Indeed, we were very 
close to starvation more than once. On our trip to Lynchburg and return 
I had only one meal in two days, and that consisted exclusively of a big 
hot, buttered roll. I have no hesitancy in saying that it was by long odds 
the best meal I ever ate. That unforgotten roll was given me at the old 
mountain house. The house is still standing, I think, and the place is 
now known as Blue Ridge Springs. 

We were at Abingdon several months, and then we went on a visit to 
a great aunt of my mother's in Henry County, Eastern Virginia. We 
went first to Lynchburg, where I saw the old Nouval House, which I 
regarded as the finest hotel in the world. Thence we went by the deliber- 
ate Confederate trains to Burkeville Junction, where we saw long and 
melancholy rows of sheds called hospitals, and where we heard some faint 
and muffled rumblings which they told us were the reports of the big guns 
at Petersburg. From Burkeville we rode to Danville in a freight car, 
riding part of the way over a strap road — that is, a railroad without iron 
rails, but with wooden sleepers laid like rails and protected for about half 
their width on top, with iron straps or bars. It was on such roads as 
this that the snake heads so frequently wrought havoc. Fortunately 
we encountered no snake heads. At Danville we took a stage and went 
some twenty miles to the great aunt's house. 



68 CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 

I was not old enough to be much interested in the country, but cer- 
tainly it was very different from the mountains and ridges of East Ten- 
nessee. It was in the flat lands where tobacco was almost the only crop. 

My aunt's home was an old-fashioned brick house in a big grove. 
Behind it was a village of negro cabins. I am distressed because I can- 
not remember more of this visit. I can recall my aunt as an old and not 
very tall lady who carried a staflF of ebony with an ivory top. The staff 
was a little taller than my aunt. Then there were my cousins, her grand- 
daughters, three of four very active and bright girls. The first thing 
that impressed me about them was that they all made their a's very 
broad. And I may say in passing that I have never heard the Virginia 
broad a elsewhere without a suspicion of affectation. These young cous- 
ins were all great riders, and, as a pony was furnished me, I rode much 
with them, having no trouble, except with the gates. Wherever we went 
we were sure to find gates, and I remember falling off, at least once, in 
trying to open one of these gates. 

A few incidents of this visit I remember distinctly. One of the most 
pleasant of these is the sorghum making. My aunt had a great many 
slaves, and the sorghum making was a notable event with them. Out 
in front of the slave quarters there were two long parallel rows of big iron 
kettles, and it was in these that the sorghum was boiled. When the fires 
were once lighted, they were kept going until the sorghum was made. 
At night the scene was strikingly picturesque. The great fires, con- 
stantly fed with fresh fuel, had the most beautiful effect, and at the same 
time gave me a creepy sensation. The negroes were constantly flitting 
among them, and the picture thus made was not unlike the idea of the 
bad place that I had gotten from the negroes at home, and from some 
of the fervent white preachers whom I had heard. My childish imag- 
ination easily made of the fires the flames of everlasting torment; the 
kettles were filled with boiling sinners, and the negroes with their shining 
faces and grotesque garb and actions, were the fiends torturing the con- 
demned. This was the negro notion of hell, and is even now their notion. 
However, when I ventured near the scene, I saw the well-known faces, 
heard the familiar voices and received all sorts of kindly attentions, and 
enjoyed myself as much as my sable friends. The pleasantest part of 
all was the singing. You know that the negroes all have rich, round 
voices, and that in the singular minor key in which all their music is set, 
they are the sweetest singers in the world Imagine, now, the great roar- 



CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 69 

ing fires lighting up the darkness of the night for many yards around, 
the negroes running to and fro, stirring and ladling, laughing, shouting, 
and "every now and then," as they say in the country, breaking out into 
one of the old plantation melodies. One voice would raise the tune and 
then hundreds of others would join in it. I am sure I never heard sweeter 
music, and I am sure, also, much as I dislike the institution of slavery, 
that there was never on earth a more contented lot of people than those 
negroes at sorghum making time. 

Occasionally some one would begin to "pat Juba," and for ten minutes 
the clapping of hands and patting of knees, all in perfect time, was almost 
deafening. I was completely fascinated by this wonderful "Juba' music 
and tried to join in it, but the art was beyond me. My room overlooked 
the sorghum yard, and long after I had been, almost by force, put into 
bed, I lay awake listening to the singing and the patting. 

That was a glorious time which I shall never forget. I remember, 
also, that on one occasion I was allowed to eat supper with one of my 
most intimate colored friends in his own cabin; and then for the first time 
I partook of the deHghts of that incomparable dish, "possum and sweet 
*taters." It is a dish of much richness, too much indeed for the ordinary 
palate and digestion; but for the negro, it is the most delectable of all. 
And then you know a boy's appetite is equal to almost anything. I recall 
the crisp browned possum, and the big brown yams all immersed in a 
little lake of the rich oil of which the "possum" is principally composed. 
I am sure that the feast was attended by no injurious results, because I 
was forever begging to go again, and grieving much because I was refused. 
My parents did not approve of it. 

Another incident that I remember is, that there came to my aunt's 
during our stay, a very aristocratic and peculiar lady, who was a connec- 
tion of the family. I shall call her Mrs. S. This lady was a daughter 
of one of the Presidents of the United States. Her husband had filled 
some important office abroad, and to the stateliness and stiffness which 
must have been natural to her she added a good many peculiarities that 
she had acquired in Europe. She was not ill-natured, far from it; but 
she completely over-awed me, and I shunned her, and am afraid that my 
conduct frequently fell below her standard. One of her peculiarities 
gave my aunt no little distress and caused me so much amusement that 
I got into trouble more than once on account of it. Like many other 
ladies, she was addicted to pets, and her favorite was a little black terrier 



70 CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 

dog. Her affection for this favored animal was carried so far that she 
would bring him to the table and put him on it close beside her plate. 
As I remember he was, like most favorites, very selfish and sometimes 
exacting and ill-natured. 

My aunt held all dogs in abhorrence, and her conduct upon the first 
appearance of the terrier upon the table caused me to laugh out-right, 
and this impropriety brought severe punishment upon me. The good 
old lady, with her old-fashioned notions of hospitality and etiquette, made 
heroic efforts to conceal her disapproval, and I do not think that Mrs. S. 
ever dreamed that she was very severely testing the courtesy of her hostess. 

I was jealous of the dog, for Mrs. S. gave him much more attention 
than my parents thought it proper to bestow on me. I was vastly amused 
one day as I sat with my aunt looking at some pictures. The terrier had 
in some way escaped from his mistress and wandered into the hall where 
we were sitting. As soon as he came in reach my aunt seized her ebony 
staff, and exclaiming: "Ah, you nasty little brute," gave him a sharp rap. 
The astonished favorite fled with loud and continued wailings and my 
aunt was in great apprehension for some days, lest Mrs. S. should learn 
of her conduct and be offended. 

We remained with our kins-people till nearly all the chestnuts were 
gone, as I now recall. From that day to this I have never seen one of the 
household. But in the year 1894 I bought at Brunswick, Georgia, a 
copy of the "Ladies Home Journal." Your mother and I had seen some 
very exclusive people at the Oglethorpe Hotel, and I had been reminded 
of Mrs. S. and had been telling what I have written here about her. Look- 
ing over the Home Journal as the train was leaving Brunswick, I saw an 
article on the "Old Ladies Home," established at Washington, by Mr. 
Corcoran. The article was illustrated, and among the illustrations was 
a portrait of this very Mrs. S. It seems that she had lost her fortune 
and was compelled to rely on the charity of the great philanthropist who 
did so much for Southern women. No doubt she was a most excellent 
lady, and I have not intended to speak disparagingly of her, but only to 
relate what I saw of her. 

From Eastern Virginia we returned to Bristol on the line between 
Tennessee and Virginia. Thence we came to Jonesboro, Tennessee, 
in December, 1864. My father was still attached to the brigade of Gen- 
eral John C. Va'ughan. 

Not long before Christmas, General Stoneman of the Federal Army 



CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 7I 

made a raid into upper East Tennessee and Southwestern Virginia. His 
force was much larger than General Vaughan's, and we made haste to 
retreat as soon as we heard of his coming. Unfortunately we were some- 
what late. Bristol is some thirty miles from Jonesboro, with which it was 
then connected by a much worn and unsafe railroad. Stoneman, when 
we first heard of him, was approaching Bristol from the Northwest, and 
was nearer that point than we were. A train of flat cars and coaches was 
hastily made up, and about one o'clock in the morning we started for 
Bristol. The flat cars were loaded with munitions of war, and the coaches 
with a mixed company of soldiers, women and children. My father 
accompanied us. It was almost daylight when we reached the suburbs 
of Bristol. There the train was stopped for a moment, and then moved 
very slowly on. I was half awake and half asleep when a sudden stop 
of the train threw me against the seat in front. Instantly there was a 
sound of firing and a loud voice cried: "Come out of there, you rebels.'* 

I remember distinctly that my father was wearing a big blue over- 
coat that had belonged to a Federal soldier. We had been told that the 
Federal authorities had issued an order that all Confederates captured 
while wearing these overcoats should be shot. This was because it was 
impossible to distinguish the Confederate soldiers, thus clad, from their 
own men. I saw my father hurriedly remove his overcoat, wrap his 
pistol in it and dash the bundle through one of the car windows. Many 
of the soldiers jumped from the car and in the darkness and confusion 
managed to escape; but my father, my mother and myself were captured. 
The night was bitter cold, and we were none too warmly clad. My father 
was marched off^ to an extemporized prison, while my mother and I were 
allowed to go to a hotel, where our baggage was sent to us. This is the 
time that I remember best of all. 

We were coldly received at the hotel, for it was not hard to tell that we 
were not in opulent circumstances. But we were not turned away. 

The next morning my father was allowed to visit us. I remember 
that he came guarded by a soldier who carried no weapons, but had a big 
spur in his hand. We bade my father a tearful farewell, and he was 
marched away on foot to Knovxille, a distance of about one hundred and 
forty miles. He told me afterwards that when he got to Knoxville his 
boots were worn out entirely and that his bare feet were on the ground. 
You will remember that it was late in December. 

General Stoneman remained in Bristol the day following our capture, 
and the suceeeding night was the most distressing one I have ever known. 



72 CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 

Immediately in front of the hotel were two large depots, in which were 
stored large quantities of weapons and ammunition. Then there was 
a long passenger shed. On one side of the hotel and distant not more 
than a hundred yards, were some large frame warehouses. On the oppo- 
site side were blocks of brick buildings. I do not know whether it was 
by intention or by accident that these were destroyed, but soon after night- 
fall they were all ablaze. 

In the hotel, crowded with women and children, all was confusion 
and consternation. On three sides this terrible conflagration was raging. 
In the depots, cartridges and shells were incessantly exploding, so that 
it seemed as if a battle were being fought. Above the roaring of the 
flames could be heard from every side shouting, shrieking, and the wailing 
of women and children. We stood terror-stricken beside the little bun- 
dles of our goods that we had made, for we could get no help to carry 
our trunks. We looked every moment for the hotel to take fire, but for- 
tunately it had been raining and we escaped that disaster, though for 
hours there was imminent danger of it. We were deafened by the tre- 
mendous noises, choked and blinded with smoke, trembling with fear. 
And then while the flames were roaring, the shells exploding, the people 
crying and moaning, there came a great burst of noise such as we had 
not heard before. Along the soaked and muddy street in front of the 
hotel came marching regiment after regiment of negro soldiers, cavalry 
or mounted infantry. As they marched they sang, discordantly: **John 
Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave." Under the glare of the 
great fires, with their shining black faces, their gleaming white teeth, 
their appearance was demoniac. To my young and terrified imagina- 
tion they were as ''fiends hot from Tartarus." They pounded on through 
the deep mud, shouting, singing, rattling their arms and crying out against 
"JeflP Davis" and all "rebels." 

You must know that above all things the Southern people feared and 
disliked negro soldiers. To me there was nothing m^ore terrible. And 
at no time during the war, or in all my life, have I been so much fright- 
ened as during that night when Bristol was burning and Stoneman's 
negro soldiers were marching by. As I could see no end of the flames 
up or down the street through which they passed, it seemed as though 
they were marching out of the fire and then into it again. 

The next day a little incident occurred that impressed itself on my 
memory. There was a long hall on the upper floor of the hotel and about 



CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 73 

midway in the ceiling was a small trap door. My mother had sent me up 
to her room for something, and just as I reached the head of the stairs 
I saw one of the ladies of our party come from one of the rooms, stop 
directly under the trap door and deftly toss a paper parcel through the 
opening into the attic. I was not too young to know what this meant, 
and was not at all surprised when, afterwards, my mother told me that 
two Confederate soldiers had taken refuge in the attic, and were pro- 
visioned by the ladies of the party in this way, I knew one of the soldiers 
very well, after the war. 

We were not able to remain at the hotel, and as soon as possible we 
secured board and lodging in a private family. We were almost destitute 
and were very unhappy. I had but one suit of clothes and that was made 
entirely from an old blue army overcoat. We were living with some 
distant relations, and our treatment was far from cordial. The condition 
of the poor relation is always an unhappy one. When Christmas came 
my mother had no money except some paper bills of the Confederacy. 
You will know how much this money was worth when I tell you that I 
had twenty-one dollars of it for a Christmas gift, and that I bought a 
quarter of a pound of maple sugar for twenty dollars, and three little sour 
warty apples for one dollar. 

It was not long before we had spent all of our stock of this worthless 
money, and were entirely dependent. Then my mother made applica- 
tion to return to Tennessee, where my father's brothers were willing to 
support us. 

We were sent across the Federal lines under a second flag of truce. 
This time we had a genuine hero in our party. His name was Keeler, and 
he was a teamster. He had become famous in East Tennessee by his 
heroic defense of a bridge across the Holston River at Strawberry' Plains 
against a party of bridge burners. Keeler was a very small man, not 
educated, and not in any way calculated to impress one. One of his 
arms had been amputated at the wrist, and his health was not good when 
I knew him. He had been made watchman at the Strawberry Plains 
bridge by the Confederate authorities early in the war. The loyalists 
of East Tennessee, with a view to obstructing the Confederacy as much 
as possible, organized small parties to burn the bridges along 
the line of the single railroad that then traversed the valley. It 
was at midnight that the attack was made on Keeler. He was sleeping 
at the time in a coffin like box upon the high abutment on the east bank 



74 CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 

of the river. I do not remember how many were in the attacking party, 
but they made a large company. In the desperate fight that ensued, 
Keeler slew several of his assailants and was himself frightfully mutilated 
with bullet and knife wounds. As I now recall, he was fighting at the 
last with nothing but a bowie knife. He succeeded in saving the bridge. 
Soon after our return to East Tennessee I visited the scene of this tragedy, 
having Keeler's recital fresh in my memory, and saw as I was told, the 
box where he lay. There were dark stains in the box and on the timbers 
of the bridge, under and around it, which they told me were blood stains. 
During this trip from Bristol we were in constant fear of bushwhack- 
ers, and more than once our escort was under arms to defend us, but we 
were not attacked. 

We were cordially received by my uncles in East Tennessee and 
remained with one or another of them until about March, 1865, when 
we moved to Knoxville, then, as now, the Capital of East Tennessee. I 
remember distinctly the day when the news came that General Lee had 
surrendered. I was playing in a stable loft when I heard a furious can- 
nonading. From the door of the loft we could see the high University 
hill. The University buildings were occupied by Federal soldiers, and 
a large battery was planted on the campus. We could see the commo- 
tion among the soldiers, and the roar of the big guns was deafening. 
Running to the house to find what was the cause of this, we found the 
ladies in tears, and were told that General Lee had surrendered. 

We had until about this time been in ignorance of the whereabouts 
of my father, who was still a prisoner of war, but we had finally ascer- 
tained that he was confined at Camp Chase in Ohio; and the next thing 
I remember is his return. He had been exchanged just before the sur- 
render and was on his way to rejoin his command when that event occurred. 

And now began another very trying time. You must remember 
that the people of East Tennessee were much divided in politics. There 
were more Union men than Confederate sympathizers. When the Con- 
federates were in power they had not been too lenient and now as the dis- 
charged soldiers of the Southern army began to return to their homes, 
the opportunity for retaliation came. I do not mean to say that all the 
Union men cherished enmity against the Confederates. By far the 
greater number of them did not, and many of them incurred personal 
danger in the effort to protect their late antagonists. There were, how- 
ever, a large number of the more violent, and not a few who had been 



CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 75 

harshly dealt with by the Confederacy, who were eager for revenge. 
The less intelligent were the more illiberal. 

Southern sympathizers were assaulted sometimes on the street and 
more than one homicide occurred in Knoxville. As many of my father's 
family were Union men, he had less cause for apprehension than any 
of his comrades. Nevertheless we were very uneasy. I recall that one 
day I found my mother very much agitated, and eagerly inquiring for 
my father. In a little while he came home, and soon afterwards a num- 
ber of his friends came to the house and held a long consultation. My 
mother, who was still very much alarmed, told me that that afternoon a 
Union man had met a returned Confederate in the court house and had 
attempted to cane him. The Confederate had done his best to escape, 
but when finally driven to the wall, had shot and killed his assailant. 
He had been arrested and imprisoned and the dominant element was 
clamoring for his life, and no Southern man could feel safe so long as 
the excitement lasted. That night there was a general ringing of bells 
throughout the city. We were all dressed ready to fly at a moment's 
warning, but we were not molested. In the morning we learned that 
the Confederate prisoner had been taken from the jail by a mob and 
hanged. The situation was unpleasant for many days. The dead Con- 
federate had many friends in the town, but they were all Southern sym- 
pathizers, and therefore helpless. They took down the body, however, 
and made preparations to bury it. Immediately they were warned that 
any public demonstration would be followed by unpleasant consequences. 
The only minister in the city, who was a Southern sympathizer, was for- 
bidden to officiate at the funeral, but being a man of fine courage, he 
disregarded the prohibition, and I am happy to say, suffered no harm. 
Whipping preachers, by the way, was not an uncommon occurrence at 
that time in the back counties. In the more intelligent communities I 
do not think anything of the kind ever occurred. 

As time passed the asperities caused by the war gradually subsided. 
But now and then the Southerners received an unpleasant reminder of 
their position. We were living just opposite the home of one of the most 
prominent Union men in the South. Indeed he was deservedly one of 
the most distinguished men in the country. He was both a very able 
and a very good man. The balcony of his house was a favorite speak- 
ing place for the orators of his party, and at election time there was speak- 
ing almost every night. One night the crowd was unusually large and 



76 CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 

enthusiastic. A vehement speaker was denouncing the **rebels," when 
a returned Confederate, who was almost drunk, and who was standing 
on the outskirts of the crowd, shouted "Hurrah for Jeff Davis." There 
was a mighty roar of wrath from the crowd, and in the twinkhng of an 
eye the street was deserted. The entire audience leaving the speaker 
in the midst of a sentence, went thundering down the street after the 
offender. Fortunately they did not catch him, or I believe there would 
have been another lynching. 

No fact of this period is so deeply impressed upon my memory as 
the one I am about to relate. Many of the East Tennessee regiments of 
the Federal army were disbanded at Knoxville; and at the times when 
the mustering out was going on, the town was crowded with soldiers. 
One day the regiment commanded by Col. D., a man much esteemed 
and respected, was being mustered out. The regiment was paraded 
in front of a large government warehouse. On the platform in front 
of this building were sentinels who were negro soldiers. Col. D. having 
occasion to enter the warehouse, was accosted by one of these sentinels 
and forbidden to proceed. He waved the soldier aside and went on, 
whereupon the soldier shot him dead, in full view of his regiment. In- 
stantly the regiment broke ranks and rushed towards the murderer. 
He fled, and for some hours was successfully concealed by his friend. 
Meanwhile a furious mob of soldiers was raging through the town hunt- 
ing him . Late in the afternoon, when some of the searchers, despairing 
of finding the culprit, had started to their homes in the country, a cav- 
alryman came galloping down the principal street crying: ^'They've 
got him! They've got him!" They had indeed found the wretched 
offender hidden in the barracks of the negro soldiers. The news spread 
as if by magic. The men who had started home came trooping back 
into the town, and a yelling, hooting, swearing mob had possession of 
the main street. If I had been older I should not have ventured into 
such a mob, but caught in the general excitement, I found myself, child 
as I was, in the thick of the throng. By common consent the gathering 
place was in front of the office of the Freedman's Bureau, a flimsy little 
frame structure, painted an ugly yellow color. The wretched negro 
was dragged with a rope around his neck to the front of this building; 
the door was broken open and the rope thrown over the transom. A 
dozen eager hands seized the rope and gave it a furious jerk, tearing 
out the door frame and almost demolishing the front of the house. Hav- 



CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 77 

ing failed here, the mob rushed down the street still dragging the black 
soldier by the rope around his neck — now he was on his feet, now prone 
in the muddy street hurried on by his ruthless captors. Once or twice 
he managed to utter a shriek of agony, and all the time he was making 
frantic, pitiful efforts to loosen the deadly clutch of the rope. He did 
not speak, but the distorted face told the terrible story of his fear and 
suffering. Once I was close to him, as the mob surged by the spot where 
I was standing, and so long as I live I shall not forget the sight. Any- 
thing more dreadful the imagination cannot conceive. At last the mob 
came to a beautiful yard full of shade trees; the enclosures were thrown 
down, a man was hoisted into one of the trees, the rope thrown to him, and 
in an instant the victim was swung into the air and literally choked to 
death. Fascinated by the horror of it all, I stood gazing at the writhing 
body, while even the mob was silenced for the moment by the sight of 
the frightful torments it was inflicting. Then pity and terror overcame 
my boyish curiosity, and I ran home as if the mob were after me; and 
for months afterwards I would not go alone into a dark place, for in 
every dark place I saw the staring eyes and the frothing mouth of the 
dead negro. 

The incident that I have just related is remarkable on account of the 
fact that both the lynchers and their victim were of the same political 
belief, and all of them were, or had been recently soldiers in the Union 
army. 

I shall content myself with relating one more incident which is illus- 
trative of the conditions of the time immediately succeeding the war. 

As soon as he was able to do so, my father sent me to school. For 
nearly two years my education had been sadly neglected, and I was behind 
nearly all the boys of my age. 

The school to which I was sent was conducted by Professor P., who 
was a young man fresh from Yale, an aspiring man with a gift of con- 
versation, but withal a very competent teacher. There were about 
seventy-five of us in the school, and our favorite amusement was sling 
fighting. This was a result of the war. The boys all played at 
fighting in some form, and a more dangerous form than sling fighting 
can hardly be conceived. The streets were macadamized and on the 
commons, indeed everywhere, stones abounded. We fought one another 
when we could find no common enemy, and I remember that the big 
boys who were very expert, were fond of fighting the little boys who were 



78 CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 

not expert. If we happened to be where for any cause slings could not 
be used, we contented ourselves with throwing stones with our hands, 
and my own indulgences in this last tamer form of the sport cost me two 
years at school, and made me lame for a longer time. 

Our school was on one of the principal streets of the town, and a 
block and a half from it was an old Methodist church which was used 
as a school house for colored children of both sexes. The teachers were 
two or three maiden ladies from down East. Their school was large; 
I am sure that they had not less than three hundred pupils, and their 
boys, as well as ours, had slings. For a long time we were on the verge 
of war with this colored school. The race prejudices on both sides were 
strong, and I suspect that the ladies teaching the colored school were not 
always discreet in their conversation. 

We had a scout whose name was Ed Snow, and the negroes had one 
whose name was Frank McNutt. Ed was a slender, active, daring little 
fellow, while Frank was a grown man, tall, slender, very powerful, and 
by far the best slinger in the town. One day the two scouts were exchang- 
ing shots, when Frank threw a minnie ball and struck Ed on the ankle, 
inflicting a serious wound from which I do not think he ever fully recov- 
ered. This was more than our white blood could endure, and so we 
gathered our forces and charged up the street towards the colored school 
house. The enemy outnumbered us largely, but though some of them 
fought bravely, most of them fled as soon as we came to close quarters. 
One big yellow fellow, I remember, threw a cobble stone at me and if his 
aim had been a little better I would not now be writing this history of 
the battle. 

Our superior fighting qualities quickly carried the day for us. We 
drove the enemy from the field, some into the school house and others 
into neighboring yards and streets. As soon as the field was ours, we 
gathered in front of the school house and gave three times three vocif- 
erous cheers. I did not quite finish my cheering, for in the midst of it, 
a hand was laid rather heavily on my shoulder and I turned to find my 
father gazing upon me with no very amiable countenance. He made 
us a short speech and told us to get back to our own school house at once, 
and we obeyed just in time. Our teacher met us with a wrathful coun- 
tenance and promised our leaders a good threshing, but the course of 
events saved them.^ For the roll had hardly been called when we heard 
a tramping, and before we knew what it meant the school house was 



CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES 79 

surrounded by a cordon of negro soldiers commanded by a white officer. 
We knew the soldiers, especially as they were colored, would not fire 
upon a lot of boys, and so we determined to fight again rather than be 
captured by negro soldiers. Whether we would have fought or not I 
cannot say, for we were not put to the test. Our teacher went out and 
had a long talk with the officer, with the result that the soldiers were 
marched away, and we were left to our studies. 

I have now written for you an account of such incidents of my child- 
hood as I think are likely to interest you. I have not attempted to em- 
bellish the narrative, nor to write an entertaining story. 

If I have misstated any facts it is because my memory has failed me. 
I have not sought so much to be historically exact as to give my own 
impressions Some friends who have heard me speak of seeking Gen- 
eral Forrest at Athens, as I have related above, say that I am mistaken 
and that it was General Wheeler. I may be wrong, but I state the im- 
pression I received at the time and have retained ever since. 




THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT.* 

T is the purpose of this paper to consider something of the his- 
tory of the origin and development of our distinctively Amer- 
ican literature. To discuss not American v^riters, or Amer- 
ican letters, but the genesis of our national literature, or of 
nationalism in our literature. 

It was not very long ago that through the efforts of one man of gen- 
ius, Lessing, German literature ceased to be imitative and mongrel, and 
became independent and national. The position of the great trans- 
cendentalist, Emerson, in American literature, corresponds closely to 
that of Lessing in the German. 

It is a fact of which we xnay be justly proud, that the first settlers 
in America were friends of education. This was true hardly less of the 
first Virginians than of the New England Puritans. In her earliest days 
Virginia had not a few writers, Captain John Smith being of the num- 
ber. The latter half of the seventeenth century, however, was an un- 
fruitful period of her intellectual life. The establishment of William 
and Mary College in 1693 marks the beginning of a new era, and this was 
the first important work of the cavalier or aristocratic element, which 
prior to that time had been of comparatively little weight in the colony. 
Almost fifty years before the founding of William and Mary, the New 
Englanders had laid the foundation of their Pharos, Harvard College. 
It was apparent from an early day that the conditions of New Eng- 
land were more favorable than those of other sections of the country 
to the growth of letters. During the whole of the eighteenth century, 
however, Virginia was a worthy rival of Massachusetts. These two 
dominated the councils of the thirteen colonies, and of the infant republic. 
The superiority thus manifested was in large measure the reward of 
their devotion to education. If we seek the causes of Adams and Han- 
cock, of Jefl^erson, Madison and Marshall, we shall find them in Har- 
vard and Yale and William and Mary. 

No sooner had the Constitution of the United States been adopted 
than a tremendous struggle arose over its construction. To this con- 
test the Southern States, being from an early period in the minority, were 
compelled to devote all their energies and abilities. For this and other 
reasons letters did not flourish in the South, and while at the end of 

*An Irving Club Paper (1892). (81 ) 

6 



82 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 

the eighteenth century Virginia, the leading Southern State, would have 
denied the palm of scholarship and literature to New England, there 
could have been found forty years later ten writers of distinction and 
merit in Massachusetts for every one in Virginia, or perhaps in the whole 
South. It is to New England with its theologic mind and theocratic 
institutions that we must look for the beginnings of American literature, 
and for the influences to which it owes its distinguishing characteristics. 
A type of the early New Englander is Cotton Mather, who was unrivalled in 
pious fervor and power, or in fruitfulness, in an age unparalleled for discourse 
and controversy. A worthy successor was Jonathan Edwards, in whom is 
found the origin of the influences, the impulse, to which after more than a 
century of secondariness and imitation, we owe the rich beginnings of a 
truly national literature. He cannot be called a reformer. He was no less 
a Calvinist than preceding New England theologians. Indeed, he was 
the strictest of Calvinists, and yet in a sense the most liberal, and was 
the forerunner of William Ellery Channing, upon whose beautiful life 
and character the marks of his influence are plainly to be seen. Be- 
tween him and his predecessors in the leadership of the Church in New 
England were diff^erences of vital importance. They had been theo- 
logians pure and simple. They had convicted and saved sinners by 
syllogisms and the terrors of damnation. He was the people's friend, 
was interested in affairs and was the steadfast advocate of social 
improvement. But, most important for our present purpose, is the 
fact that he was in a very special and unusual sense an idealist. 
The great religious teachers have from the nature of things belonged 
to this school of philosophy. But President Edwards was more than 
a religious teacher. He was the dominant thinker of his time in this 
country. His influence upon New England can hardly be overestimated. 
America has not produced his equal in theology or metaphysics. He 
is the fixed and definite source of modern idealism in New England, 
although by many he has been strangely misconceived as a follower of 
Locke. After him came Channing, a man almost without an equal for 
teauty and nobility of character. Differing widely from Edwards in 
important respects, he was nevertheless his disciple. His influence, 
except in theology, was in the same direction, and in the main along the 
same lines. His theology also was upon the earth and not in the clouds. 
Since the death of Edwards no man had filled so large a space in the 
intellectual life of New England. He was a social reformer and an ideal- 



THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 83 

ist; the connecting link between the liberalized Calvinism of Edwards 
and the transcendentalism of Emerson. We thus reach, historically, the 
period of our declaration of intellectual independence; and here fair treat- 
ment of the subject demands consideration of certain writers who were 
not of New England. 

Professor Tyler, in his excellent work on American literature, divides 
the colonial period into two epochs; the first extending from 1607 to 1676, 
and the second from 1676 to 1776. In the first the authors of such 
books as were written in America were immigrants. In the second they 
were native Americans writing after foreign models and controlled by 
foreign influences. This latter state did not end with the War of Inde- 
pendence. For the first half century of our national life our writers 
were born in America, but wrote for Europe. The condition is almost 
reproduced in the relations of our own North and South of the present 
day. There are many Southern writers, but as a rule they are writing 
for the North. The reading public is at the North. Seventy-five years 
ago it was in England. 

It was in 1820 that Sydney Smith made himself odious to Americans 
by his famous question: "In the four quarters of the globe, who reads 
an American book? Or goes to an American play? Or looks at an 
American picture or statue?" This was eleven years after the appearance 
of "Knickerbocker," the very year that Irving gave the "Sketch Book" to the 
world, and one year before Cooper's ''Spy" was printed. Irving and Cooper 
were the first American authors who attracted the attention of European 
readers. Irving is by some affectionately styled "the father of American 
literature," and yet in the sense in which the term is used in this paper, 
very much of his work is not American at all. He was a student of the 
literary style and methods of the "Spectator." The humor, often super- 
refined, the sketchiness of "Bracebridge" and others of his books, the 
literary partnership with Paulding, all remind us of Addison and Steele 
and the customs of their day. The witty couplet with which Lowell 
concludes his description of Irving is well known, but is worthy to be 
repeated: 

"You'll find a choice nature, not wholly deserving 
A name either English or Yankee, just Irving." 

The following ferocious criticism of Irving comes from the Edin- 
burgh Review: "He gasped for British popularity, he came and found 



84 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 

it. He was received, caressed, applauded, and made giddy; natural 
politeness owed him some return, for he imitated, admired, and deferred 

to us It was plain that he thought of nothing else, and 

was ready to sacrifice everything to obtain a smile or a look of approba- 
tion." Genial "Kit North" was a more kindly critic. He said: "His 

later books are beautiful, but they are English As he 

thinks and feels, so does he write, more like us than we could have thought 
it possible an American could do, while his fine, natural genius preserves 
in a great measure his originality." It may not be denied that Irving did 
defer to English taste, and crave English approval. Indeed, how could 
it have been otherwise? His reading, his studies of style, his readers, 
and the traditions of his profession were all English. Nevertheless, 
many of his books are as genuinely American in subject and in treat- 
ment as the most extreme nationalism could demand. This is notably 
true of "Knickerbocker," the "Sketch Book," and "Washington." 

The Rev. Sydney Smith did not know when he propounded his uncom- 
plimentary question that there were alive at that time such persons as 
Irving, Cooper, Poe, Bryant, Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, Bancroft, 
Motley, Prescott, Hawthorne and Harriet Beecher Stowe, all of whom were 
destined to write American books which would be read and praised the world 
over, and all of whom would be honored, no less than himself, in "the 
four quarters of the globe." Of these, Irving was first in point of time, 
but he had nothing of the radical in his composition. He was essen- 
tially conservative, and had not the independence, nor in truth, the intel- 
lectual force, to lead a revolt against foreign domination. He served the 
cause of American letters most, by proving to the world that his country 
afforded the materials of literature, and thereby greatly stimulating native 
production. 

Cooper's first story, "Precaution," was essentially an English novel, 
and if his subsequent tales were, many of them, devoted to backwoods 
life and adventure, it was not on account of the author's Americanism, 
more than of the fact that the novelty of the theme made them popular 
in Europe. That Cooper was intensely American is well known, but 
it was political Americanism. In his dissertations upon the greatness 
of his country, and her future, he dwells at great length on material 
aspects, and has the fewest words for art and letters. The unfortu- 
nate differences which arose between him and so many of his 
countrymen, in his later years, were not calculated to make him hope- 



THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 85 

ful or even desirous of a distinctively American literature. I can find 
no positive evidence that he participated in the desire so strongly 
expressed by some of his New England contemporaries for the estab- 
lishment of "the American sentiment" in literature. That his services 
in that direction were very great, though perhaps unconscious, must be 
thankfully admitted. He was, and has perhaps continued to be, the 
most popular of American writers in Europe, especially on the continent, 
where his books have been more generally translated than those of any 
other of our writers. "Uncle Tom's Cabin," no doubt, surpassed his 
works in Trans-Atlantic popularity, but no such favor has been granted 
any other of Mrs. Stowe's books, while nearly all his novels have been 
translated and widely read. The extent of his influence at home is indi- 
cated by the number and standing of his imitators. Among these may 
be mentioned, as the most prominent, Wm. Gilmore Simms, John P. 
Kennedy and Bret Harte. The multitudinous and sanguinary Indian 
dime novels are "counterfeit presentments" of the "Leatherstocking 
Tales." 

Conceding then to Irving and Cooper important parts in the advance- 
ment of literature in America, it remains true that neither of them was 
the avowed or the actual champion of our intellectual independence. For 
the origin of this sentiment and movement, we shall look in vain unless 
we turn to New England. It was somewhere between 1820 and 1836 that 
the great intellectual revival of New England began. Its chief product 
was called "Transcendentalism." 

It is a notable fact that American writers who treat of the origin of 
transcendentalism, almost without exception trace it to foreign sources, 
ranging from Buddha and Plato to Swedenborg and Carlyle. It has 
been tacitly conceded that these foreign influences seized upon the Yan- 
kee mind and moulded it after their own fashion. Unquestionably, 
every one of the great ideal philosophers, from Plato downward, had 
part in the creation of transcendentalism, but it is not necessary now 
to seek farther than the proximate causes. For these we are not com- 
pelled to study the Platonists, the Neo-Platonists, Swedenborg, Coleridge, 
or Kant. The idealists who were most influential in causing and in 
shaping and directing the New England mind and therefore the trans- 
cendental movement, were Jonathan Edwards and William Ellery Chan- 
ning. The mantle of Channing fell upon Emerson. These three repre- 
sent as many distinct, and, in some respects, antagonistic phases of thought. 



86 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 

These phases are connected stages of progress, for better or worse, from 
the severest Calvinism of theocratic times to transcendentaHsm, which 
was the ultimate refinement of idealism. There was a general awakening 
in both Europe and America, a profound thought movement. Nowhere 
was the activity more profound than in New England, where it was 
essentially a revival of idealism. And Edwards and Channing were the 
husbandmen who had prepared the soil and sown much of the seed. 
There is no need to go to Europe when we can find such good and sufficient 
causes at home. There was not a little sentimentalism, mingled with trans- 
cendentalism, if we accept Lowell's definition of it. Brook Farm is a con- 
spicuous instance. Lowell, writing wittily, thus describes the time: "The 
nameless eagle of the tree Ygdrasil was about to sit at last, and wild-eyed en- 
thusiasts rushed from all sides, eager to thrust under the mystic bird that 
chalk egg from which the new and fairer creation was to be hatched in 
due time. . . . Every form of intellectual and physical dyspepsia 
brought forth its gospel. . . . Everybody had a mission (with a 
capital M) to attend to everybody else's business. . . . No brain 
but had its private maggot, which must have found pitiably short commons 
sometimes!" Elsewhere he writes less wittily, but not less truthfully: "It 
was simply a struggle for fresh air. . . . There is only one thing better 
than tradition; that is the original and eternal life, out of which all tradi- 
tion takes its rise. It was this life which the reformers demanded with 
more or less clearness of consciousness and expression, life in politics, 
life in literature, life in religion." Emerson puts it thus: "The general 
mind had become aware of itself. Men grew conscious and intellectual. 
The swart earth spirit which had made the strength of past ages was 
all gone, and another hour had struck. In literature there was a decided 
tendency to criticism, and young men seemed to have been born with 
knives in their brains." 

Colonel Higginson, in his "Life of Margaret Fuller," declares that: 
"What is called the Transcendental Movement amounts essentially 
to this: about the year 1836, a number of young people in America 
made the discovery that in whatever quarter of the globe they happened 
to be, it was possible for them to take a look at the stars for themselves. 
This discovery no doubt led to extravagancies and follies; the experi- 
mentalists at first went stumbling about like the astrologer in the fable, 
with their eyes on the heavens; and at Brook Farm they, like him, fell 
into the ditch. No matter, there were plenty of people to make a stand 



THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 87 

in behalf of conventionalism in those very days; the thing most needed 
was to have a few fresh thinkers, a few apostles of the ideal, and they 
soon made their appearance in good earnest. The jfirst impulse no 
doubt was in the line of philosophic and theologic speculation, but the 
primary aim announced on the very jfirst page of the 'Dial' was 
to make new demands in literature.^' It was of the intellectual activity 
of this period that a genuinely American literature was born. The 
correctness of assigning an exclusively foreign origin to transcendent- 
alism, considered as a philosophic movement, is questioned. It was 
through the philosophic that the literary movement came. They were 
two phases of one substance. In regard to the latter, as well as the 
former, there has been a mistaken tendency to look abroad for causes. 
The period was marked, both in Europe and America, by an extra- 
ordinary activity in every department of thought and endeavor. It 
was the beginning of the new era of invention and scientific progress. 
America shared in the world's advancement. New England was the 
first settled and most thickly populated section of the country. It had 
progressed further toward the conquest of the soil and was socially estab- 
lished. Having measurably solved the problems of politics and affairs 
which had in the beginning demanded all their energies, the people had 
more leisure as well as more taste for philosophy and literature. They 
had reached the point where they had prepared to break their leading 
strings and go alone. They were unwilling that others should longer 
furnish them opinions. They would try to think for themselves. Colonel 
Higginson declares that: "As Petrarch gave an impulse to modern 
European literature when he thought himself reviving the study of the 
ancient, so the transcendental movement in America, while actively 
introducing French and German authors to the American public, was 
really preparing the way for that public to demand a literature of its 
own." The comparison is not unexceptionable, because the transcendent- 
alists were not unconscious of the work they were accomplishing, but 
were upon the contrary loud and persistent in their demands for a liter- 
ature of our own. 

It is to be noted that the eminent author, last quoted, speaks of the 
transcendentalists as "introducing French and German authors." 
This is the correct statement of the case. The study of foreign liter- 
ature was the effect and not the cause. The primary cause was the 
intellectual growth and alertness of New England, and not the importa- 



88 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 

tion of books from Europe. Transcendentalism in its literary as well 
as in its philosophic aspect was essentially home-made. This is 
true, as far as it can ever be true of such a manifestation anywhere. 
But whatever the causes may have been, wherever the sources are 
to be sought, it is certain that to these New England idealists we owe 
what we have of a distinctively American literature. That there was 
any necessary connection between their achievements in literature and 
their pecuHar philosophical doctrines will not be believed readily by 
those who are less prone than the present writer to regard the idealists 
as the leaders of the world's thought and progress. It is to be remarked, 
however, that the lofty morahty of the transcendentalists gave to the 
literature of this country the high tone and character for which it has 
been distinguished. Of this, more anon. 

The following facts and quotations are offered as proofs that I do 
not overestimate the merits and services of this school: 

In his famous address on the "American Scholar" in 1837 Emerson 
said: "Perhaps the time is already come, . . . when the sluggard 
intellect of this continent will look from under its iron lids, and fill the 
postponed expectation of the world with something better than the exer- 
tions of mechanical skill. Our day of dependence, our long apprentice- 
ship to the learning of other lands draws to a close. The multitudes around 
us that are rushing into life cannot always be fed on the sere remains of for- 
eign harvests. Events, actions arise that must be sung, that will sing them- 
selves." It was in 1836 that Robert Bartlett said in his address at Harvard : 
"Is everything so sterile and pigmy here in New England, that we must 
all, writers and readers, be forever replenishing ourselves with the mighty 
wonders of the old world? . . . We are looking abroad and back- 
ward for a literature. Let us come and live, and know in living a high 
philosophy and faith; so shall we find now, here, the elements, and in 
our own good souls, the fire." It was in the same year that Thoreau 
wrote: "We are, as it were, but colonies. True, we have declared our 
independence and gained our liberty, but we have dissolved only the 
political bonds, which connected us with Great Britain. Though we have 
rejected her tea, she still supplies us with food for the mind. The aspirant 
for fame must breathe the atmosphere of foreign parts, and learn to talk 
about things which the home-bred student never dreamed of, if he would 
have his talents appreciated or his opinions regarded by his countrymen." 
Theodore Parker is quoted as saying that: "The cultivated Amer- 



THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 89 

ican literature was exotic and the native literature was rowdy, consisting 
mainly of campaign squibs, coarse satire, and frontier jokes. Children 
were reared from the time they learned their letters on Miss Edgeworth 
and Mrs. Trimmer, whose books, otherwise excellent, were unconsciously 
saturated with social conventionalisms and distinctions quite foreign 
to our society." 

The first subject discussed by the "Transcendental Club" was: "Amer- 
ican Genius, the causes which hinder its growth, giving us no first rate 
productions." The "Dial" has by eminent authority, already much 
used in this paper, been declared to have been the first thoroughly 
American "literary enterprise." Greatest among the transcendental- 
ists was Emerson, and to him more than any other, are we in- 
debted for the development of a national sentiment in our literature. 
Lowell gives him all the credit, saying: "We were still socially and 
intellectually moored to English thought till Emerson cut the cable." 
George Willis Cook, in his excellent biography, pays Emerson this high 
tribute: "As Lessing raised his voice against imitation of the French, 
and called for a genuine German literature, founded on national senti- 
ment, so has Emerson protested against foreign models, and in favor of 
American literature. His influence has been as healthful and powerful 
as Lessing's, creating in this way, as Lessing did, a national literature." 

Thus American literature was born in New England and nurtured 
by a lofty idealism. Its beginning was upon a high plane. The char- 
acter which was imparted to it by its founders has been maintained. If 
the tremendous growth of foreign population and influence appears of 
late years to have lowered its tone and to have debauched the public 
taste, we have every reason to believe that the manifestation is ephemeral 
and unimportant, although it may be ridiculous and offensive. 

From what has been said it will be seen that the word "transcen- 
dentalism" is used as the most convenient name for the New England 
revival of letters. Perhaps the choice was an unhappy one, even mis- 
leading and inaccurate. It is true that in our studies we have considered 
especially the extreme, the excessive aspects of the movement, for which 
we have developed but little sympathy. This is natural and in a meas- 
ure right, for in certain respects the ultra transcendentalists deserve 
richly, not only disapproval, but the most positive condemnation. 

It is unavoidable that every strong movement intellectual, moral or 
political should produce extremists and run into extravagancies. Of 



90 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 

all the great things of modern times, the reformation of the sixteenth 
century was indisputably the greatest, but no one condemns Martin 
Luther because Protestantism produced so absurd a creature as Praise 
God Barebones, and If-Christ-had-not-died-for-you-you-had-been-damned 
Barebones. And as we can now laugh at the Barebones family record, 
so we can smile at Brook Farm, at Thoreau's pinchbeck Buddishm, at 
Alcott playing tinker and feeding his family on the ultra transcendental 
winter diet of apples, and at a thousand other extravagant and fantastic 
sayings and doings, and at the same time know that the movement, out 
of which all these absurd things sprung, was founded in high principles, 
directed to noble ends, and productive of not a few beneficent results. 
It was in a positive and actual sense the first conscious and general Amer- 
ican espousal of that noble philosophy, which may not contain the whole 
truth, but which to my mind holds the better part that was taught in 
Greece by Plato, in Germany by Kant, in England by Coleridge and 
Carlyle, and which is in varying forms the basis of every great religion. 

The transcendentalists, and especially Emerson, have been criticised 
for exaggerating the importance of the individual and of self-culture. 
On this point I cannot refrain from quoting Frothingham, with whom 
I agree fully in this instance. "It has been objected to that it made 
self-culture too important, carrying it to the point of selfishness, sacri- 
ficing in its behalf sympathy, brotherly love, sentiments of patriotism, 
personal fidelity and honor, and rejoicing in the production of a moun- 
tainous 'M^,' fed at the expense of life's sweetest humanities, and Goethe 
is straightway cited as the transcendental apostle of the gospel of heart- 
less indifference. But allowing the charge against Goethe to rest unre- 
futed, it must be made against him as a man, not as a transcendentalist; 
and even if it were true of him as a transcendentalist it was not true of 
Kant, or Fichte, of Schleiermacher or Herder, of Jean Paul or Novalis, 
of Coleridge, Carlyle or Wordsworth; and whoever intimated that it was 
true of Emerson, who has been one of the most industrious teachers of 
his generation, and one of the most earnest worshippers of the genius of 
his native land." Again he says, after commending Parker, Channing 
and others: "By * self-culture' these and the rest of their brotherhood 
meant the culture of that nobler self, which includes heart and conscience, 
sympathy and spirituality, not as incidental ingredients, but as essential 
qualities. Self-hood they never identified with selfishness." 

So much is deemed proper and fair to say, seeing now too late that 



THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 9 1 

in assigning the topics for the present series of discussions we have unduly 
emphasized the ultra and least attractive and excellent features of the 
transcendental movement. In concluding this digression, the convic- 
tion is reaffirmed that, considered with reference to its real spirit and 
purposes, no uninspired movement in thought or morals was ever purer 
in quality, or aimed higher than the transcendental movement. This 
is said despite total dissent from Emerson's most important religious 
teachings, the conviction that Thoreau was largely absurd, the luke- 
warm admiration of Margaret Fuller, the inability to admire Ripley at 
all, the belief that Dana was a brilliant, ill-balanced, unsafe and trucu- 
lent fellow, and many other dissents, disapprovals and dislikes of trans- 
cendentalists and of parts of transcendentalism. 

A book on the poetry of transcendentalism has appeared, showing 
that these poets, male and female, were forty in number. Of the better 
known literary persons directly connected with the movement all the 
men and women may be included who thought and wrote in New Eng- 
land in the first three quarters of the last century, especially in the second 
and third quarters. Bancroft represents it in history, Hawthorne and 
Harriet Beecher Stowe in fiction, and Emerson, Whittier, and in less 
degree Longfellow in poetry. It has touched and influenced more than 
any other single force, the moral and intellectual life of the whole coun- 
try for the last seventy-five years. The anti-slavery agitators. Garrison, 
Phillips and Sumner, were its immediate products, and the kinship be- 
tween these and the Eastern anti-imperialists, Atkinson and others of 
today, is apparent at a glance. It is true perhaps that essentially the 
movement was ethical rather than literary or purely intellectual in pur- 
pose and quality; but in its literary results only it has been the most 
influential, if not in fact the only real literary movement, we have had 
in America. Emerson is unquestionably the foremost man of the move- 
ment, not that he was the greatest or best American writer, but that he 
was among the first in literary skill and achievement, and indisputably 
the first and the most influential in promoting the independence of letters 
in this country. 



THE SOUTH IN THE REVOLUTION * 

Address at the Triennial Banquet of the General Society of the 
Sons of the Revolution, Washington, D. C, April 19, 1902. 

Mr. Joshua W. Caldwell: Mr. President and Gentlemen: It is 
exceedingly kind of you to applaud before you know what is coming. 
I have, long ago, reached the conclusion that whenever it becomes neces- 
sary, I shall ask my audience to begin Vv^ith a little applause. I know 
of nothing that gives the speaker a better send-ofF. I am a little bit 
embarrassed by the position that I occupy on the programme tonight, 
for a good many reasons. I think that for my own good, I come a little 
too early. It is all very well for my distinguished and eloquent friend, 
Mr. Cabell, of Virginia, to come first, because he is one of the First Fam- 
ilies of Virginia. (Laughter and applause). He is also one of the first 
orators, wherever he may be; but I am additionally embarrassed, and 
somewhat complimented also, and pleased, by the fact that I take this 
evening what one of my friends calls "^r^^edence," and the other calls 
"pre^-^-dence" (applause and laughter) over certain other distinguished 
gentlemen. I think this is the first occasion on which a plain, an exceed- 
ingly plain, American citizen, surrounded by his fellow-citizens of the 
same general description (laughter), has ever taken precedence or prece- 
dence over the "j" Ambassador of the French Republic. (Laughter and 
applause.) I am sure, also, that it is the first occasion where such pre- 
cedence has been granted to an American Citizen over the illustrious 
Jhead of the American Navy; (applause) a gentleman who immortalized 
himself in the Bay of Manila, and between the two acts of his immor- 
tality enjoyed the most renowned breakfast of which history gives 
any account. (Laughter and applause.) 

I precede, also, the illustrious § commander of the American Army. 
(Applause.) The unconquered and unconquerable Army; (applause) 
and the army to which I never belonged, (laughter) but which I induced 
a great many of my fellow citizens of Tennessee to enter during the 
Spanish war. (Laughter and applause.) And I beg leave to say for 
myself, gentlemen, that whatever may have been the conduct of the 

•Stenographer's report. 

t M. Jules Cambon. 

X Admiral George Dewey. 

SGeneral Nelson A. Miles. 93) 



94 THE SOUTH IN THE REVOLUTION 

soldiers in the field, there was no man, in my part of the United States, 
at least, who uttered more sanguinary sentiments than I did, at the 
time. (Laughter and applause.) 

There is another gentleman present here whom I am embarrassed 
to precede, and that is Mr. Wetmore. (Applause.) I have somewhat 
against Mr. Wetmore. I appeared at the banquet with him four years 
ago. I do not say that your champagne is the reason of the President 
General's limiting it to two years, because it was four years ago, Mr. 
President, and Mr. Wetmore made a much better speech than I did. 
The only consolation that I have is that he made a better one than any- 
body else. So, you see, that I labor under all these various and accu- 
mulated embarrassments. I labor, also, under the embarrassment 
now, gentlemen, that I have taken up nearly all the time that I have 
allotted to me, and I see no way of approaching, with propriety, the sub- 
ject which has been assigned me. It was exceedingly kind in the Com- 
mittee, or in the Secretaries, because this Society is mainly composed 
of its two Secretaries; (laughter) the two Secretaries, who have added 
to their secretarial reputations in the last two days, that of being the 
best caterers, in Washington, at least, (applause). I say, it was very 
kind of these two gentlemen to allow the South to be heard at all, even 
through so unworthy a representative, upon an occasion like this, and 
upon a subject, in regard to which he has the right to be proud. (Ap- 
plause.) The South, you know, and I take it that this is the same kind 
of audience that had me make a semi-Confederate speech in New York, 
and I am going to take all sorts of liberties with it, as I have been taking 
with my subject — the South is in a state of pupilage, you know; and 
has been, for a long time, receiving liberal, wise, and, apparently, inex- 
haustible instruction in public morality. I am inclined to think that in 
Greater New York, the religious and moral energies of the people, at 
this time, are divided, almost equally, between two very commendable 
enterprises. The first is, the enlightenment and conversion of the South; 
and the second is one that, to me, as an enthusiastic, if not a good Epis- 
copalian, appeals especially; that second purpose seems to be the illu- 
mination and the conversion of Bishop Potter. (Laughter and applause.) 
I have great hopes that the Bishop of New York has in him the mak- 
ing of the kind of man that the people want him to be, up there, and 
there is a prospect of his being reclaimed from his vicious ways. If the 
persistency so offered to redeem him should be anything like that to 
redeem the South, there can be no doubt of the result. 



THE SOUTH IN THE REVOLUTION 95 

But, approximating my subject a little more. We, down South, have 
had our moral, and intellectual, and other inferiorities, so forcibly pre- 
sented to us that we have grown a little sensitive on the subject, and 
we naturally like to feel ourselves at liberty to say anything — and we 
naturally like to avail ourselves of the opportunity to say anything good 
about ourselves, so that this evening I am sure I can hope for your 
indulgence, if I manifest in my representative capacity a little of that 
quality which is becoming, since the battle of Manila, the prominent 
American characteristic, and indulge in some expressions of self-satis- 
faction. 

The South lives in the hope that it may become, after awhile, purely 
a geographical section, and not a political section. (Applause.) 

Now, gentlemen, that is about as trite a thing as any one can say, 
and you are exceedingly obliging in applauding it; nevertheless, I feel 
what I say, and I mean what I say; there are certain things that we can 
do. Now, I told one of my friends that I was going to say this, and he 
said that I had better not do it; but I am going to say it, all the same. 
I say we will become a geographical, and not a political, section. Cer- 
tain things will help very much to that end. If the South — if we in the 
South — can abate the summariness of our method of public execution, 
if I make myself clear; (laughter and applause) and what is more impor- 
tant, even than that, and, at the same time, obviates the causes of that 
summariness, and if our friends in the North can, upon their part, abate 
a little of the copiousness and the readiness of their philanthropy and 
benevolence, or will even divert a little of those admirable sentiments 
to the white people of the South, we may hope for much. (Applause.) 

The South, I venture to say, and I am pursuing my announced policy 
of speaking well of ourselves — the South, I venture to say, is more for- 
giving, and more tolerant, than those of our fellow citizens dwelling in 
more Northern latitudes. (Applause.) I think that we forgave you 
for succeeding in the Civil War, or the great American War, before you 
forgave us for failing in it. (Laughter.) I think, also, that we are more 
tolerant in this. Whenever a race riot takes place in Ohio, or Illinois, 
or under the shadow of the Cooper Institute, where crusades against race 
prejudices are eloquently and enthusiastically preached, we do not utter 
any denunciations, nor do we send you any missionaries. We recog- 
nize in you a virtuous and well-disposed people, and we think that you 
are entitled to enjoy the pleasures of an occasional aberration. (Laughter.) 



96 THE SOUTH IN THE REVOLUTION 

Now, Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen, on the last occasion on 
which I made a public speech, the gentleman preceding me, as there 
was an hour and five minutes to be divided between us, allowed me the 
five minutes, (laughter) and I am a little bit in danger of allowing these 
distinguished gentlemen the five minutes, although I take it that none 
of them would be so opposed to violating the Sabbath as I would. 

But, I make this suggestion, that the Spanish War taught some 
very admirable lessons to all of us. I suggest, further, that if the Presi- 
dent of the United States will come South occasionally, and repeat his 
Charleston speech, or make other speeches like it, the tide of good feeling 
will rise so high in this country that it will obliterate every vestige of 
sectional lines and sectional feeling. (Applause.) The fact is, gen- 
tlemen, we have forgotten all about it ourselves. 

THE SOUTH IN THE REVOLUTION. 

If any gentleman imagines that I intend to oflFer any addition to the 
Washington eulogies he is mistaken. I desire to say as respectfully, 
and as seriously, and as earnestly as any one can, that the South rejoices 
in the fact that George Washington, who occupies absolutely the fore- 
most and the most enviable place in the world's history, was one of her 
sons. (Applause.) I mean all that I say. I do not believe that there 
is a man in the sound of my voice, who, if he had his choice of all the 
names and all the fames in history, would not take the name and fame 
of George Washington. (Applause.) Because he is, above all others, 
and will be, so long as histories are written, and men shall live, the cham- 
pion of liberty. (Applause.) There are certain other men in whom 
we have great pride. We say that John Marshall was the foremost 
jurist that this country has produced; many of us believe that Thomas 
Jefferson was the foremost political philosopher that the country has 
produced, and I believe that James Madison was the greatest construct- 
ive statesman that this country has produced; but, of all these great 
Southern men, I have nothing to say, tonight, beyond what I have already 
said. There is an opinion in the South which, if erroneous, is also harm- 
less, that the Revolution and the Constitution, were the work of South- 
ern men. I do not, for myself, unqualifiedly, assert this; nevertheless, 
the South has every right to be proud of her part in the Revolution. There 
are certain minor, and less-known, aspects of the great struggle to which. 



THE SOUTH IN THE REVOLUTION 97 

as a matter of personal and of sectional pride, I should like to call your 
attention for a few moments. Enough has been said, I suppose, of the 
Cavalier ancestors of my distinguished Virginia friend; and I desire to 
ask your attention, just for a moment, to the part taken in the struggle 
for independence by another race, to which I have the honor to belong 
myself; I mean the Scotch-Irish. (Applause.) Until the last decade, 
a reader of American history, which was written mainly in the higher 
intellectual atmosphere of New England, would have supposed, natu- 
rally, and not without some justification, that all the good and the great 
things in American history had been done by New Englanders. Since 
the revival of the interest in the Scotch-Irish in the South, practically 
the same claims are made for that race, so, in the years, we have become 
actually to believe almost that the Scotch-Irishmen did it all. The 
Scotch-Irish are of two classes, I will say, in passing; and I say it be- 
cause, like the other things I have said, it is not at all apropos to my 
subject; the sweet and the sour Scotch-Irish. The sour Scotch-Irish- 
man has what Carlyle calls the sardonic taciturnity, and a generally 
sour disagreeableness; the sweet Scotch-Irishman has all the virtues in 
their perfection; but, whether a Scotch-Irishman be sour or sweet, he 
is two other things; he is a dictionary-democrat, and a Presbyterian. 
(Laughter and applause.) They came over to this country late. If 
they had had equal opportunities with the New England Puritans, they 
would have possessed New England, and would have built New York 
City. As it was, they came to find the coast-line occupied; all the better 
places pre-empted. Consequently, they were driven into the Piedmont 
country; into the mountainous regions, and they have settled in the Hol- 
stein Valley, and in the upper part of East Tennessee, at the time of the 
outbreak of the Revolution, and they established, gentlemen, in the 
State of Tennessee, alone, four distinct and independent republics, I 
think, before any others existed in this country. (Applause.) 

In seventeen hundred and eighty, at the time when Lord Cornwallis 
was perfecting his arrangements to wind the folds of his military Ana- 
conda around this country, to crush it to death, he sent one Major Pat 
Ferguson westward towards the mountains, and Major Ferguson sent 
word over into my country, where my ancestors then lived, that he was 
coming, and that the people must make settlement. Instead of that, they 
mustered, Shelby and Sevier from the Virginia and Tennessee settle- 
ments, and they gathered upon the Wautaga River, and they had a draft- 



98 THE SOUTH IN THE REVOLUTION 

ing, but the drafting was not to determine who should go to fight 
Ferguson, but who should stay at home. Such a drafting, I venture 
to say, was never known upon the earth before. They crossed the moun- 
tains, they met Cleveland and, at King's Mountain, they annihilated 
Ferguson's army; Mr. Jefferson said that the battle of King's Mountain 
was the joyful enunciation of that turn in the tide, towards success, which 
stamped the Revolutionary War with the seal of independence. There 
was not a commissioned officer; there was not a uniform; there was not 
a regulation sabre or musket in the American army at the battle of King's 
Mountain; that was in October, 1780. Not long before that. General 
Gates had been defeated at Camden. It was a disaster, and we con- 
template it with regret; but it seems to have been the traditional method 
of retiring General Gates from the army. Not long after that General 
Green came South to hunt the remnants of General Gates' army, and, 
in North Carolina, he discovered a few of the remnants, many of them 
composed of good material; he confirmed the arrangement that Gates 
had made at Camden, and allowed Daniel Morgan to have one wing of 
the army, saved from the other. I wish I had the time to pause and say 
it. Daniel Morgan is, to my mind, the man of all men, in the patriot 
army, who has received the least justice from history. I am inclined to 
believe that, after Washington, the fame rests between Green and Mor- 
gan for the best soldiers in the American army. Morgan was a Penn- 
sylvanian, from Virginia, and Green was a Rhode Island Yankee, who 
finally was captured by the State of Georgia. He has been buried once 
there, but I hope it will be done well again, by one State or the other. 

Meanwhile, the battle of Cowpens occurred. To me it is one of 
the most pleasant events of the Revolution, because Tarleton there re- 
ceived the thrashing which he deserved better than any soldier of the 
British army. In the South, at least to this day, no British soldier has 
so odious a reputation as General Tarleton — Colonel Tarleton. 

I must pass on rapidly. At the battle of Guilford Court House, 
General Green, who had executed the most masterly retreat of the war, 
met Cornwallis. Green had forty-four hundred men, of whom three 
hundred were veterans, and one thousand, or more, were recruits, and 
the remainder were raw militia men. These raw militia men did not 
win renown, and the most assiduous and sympathetic friends and local 
historians have accomplished a very imperfect rehabilitation of their 
reputation. Cornwallis had twenty-three hundred men, the best of 



THE SOUTH IN THE REVOLUTION 99 

his army. Green was defeated, and retreated, but only three miles. 
Almost immediately afterwards, Cornwallis, having contemplated, with 
mingled dismay and pleasure, a victory where his men had accom- 
plished a prodigious failure, and where they left more than one-quarter 
of their number upon the field, retreated to Wilmington. Green became 
the pursuer, but his course was to the South, and Cornwallis was headed 
to the North; and he proceeded north, where, in due course of time, he 
received the attention of a gentleman who was known to the Britishers 
of that period as a Mr. Washington, of Virginia, in company with cer- 
tain distinguished gentlemen and friends. General Green proceeded 
South, and his subsequent career is very entertaining and interesting. 
At Hobkirk's Mill he was defeated; in the South he was unsuccessful 
and the utmost that can be claimed for the battle of Eutaw is that it 
was a drawn battle; so that his record is this: he was defeated at Guil- 
ford, at Hobkirk's Mill he was repulsed, and he retreated at the same 
time that the British retreated at Eutaw; but there was this singularity 
about all Green's defeats and repulses; immediately after each of them, 
the British retreated, so that, at the end of a long series of defeats and 
repulses. Green had driven the remnant of the British army into the 
City of Charleston, and cooped them up there; that is the only record 
that history gives of a series of unbroken defeats and repulses resulting 
in the most satisfactory success. At the end of the war. General Green 
received the thanks of Congress, and deserved them. He also received 
magnificent gifts of land in the South, and made his home in the State 
of Georgia. Many other excellent men from the North have come to 
the South to live, but General Green is conspicuous among the number, 
by reason of the fact that he is the only one of them who ever refused 
a public office. (Laughter and applause.) It is only fair for me to 
say, gentlemen, in that same connection, that I do not know any compeer 
of my own who has ever refused an office of any kind. 

Now, I must pass on. I have said all that I have to say about the 
South in the Revolution except this: the battles of King's Mountain 
and Cowpens, and Guilford Court House were the prelude to Yorktown, 
measured by the result, and the individual efficiency; possibly, I believe 
that General Green must be declared as the next man to George Wash- 
ington among the American soldiers. (Applause.) I do not believe 
that we can over-estimate his importance, and this I say, in conclusion, 
upon that subject: that the tools with which General Green wrought 



100 THE SOUTH IN THE REVOLUTION 

were, every one of them, soldiers from the Southern States, and most 
of them Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. (Laughter and applause.) I 
have discovered that General Green has five descendants in my imme- 
diate neighborhood, upon this platform; I understand they are all de- 
scendants of General Green. 

Well, now, gentlemen, let us say just one word more. I do not con- 
cede that all the goodness and greatness of the South is in the past. I 
am somewhat intolerant of the phrase, "The New South," because, so 
far as I know, there is nothing new in the South particularly except 
the large establishments that we have induced you to come down there 
and open up for the manufacture of our cotton. There are, also, cer- 
tain very large tracts of land, large and unimproved tracts of land, which 
are designated as cities (laughter) in local nomenclature, which are the 
result of more successful efforts on our part to recoup ourselves for the 
disasters of the war. (Laughter.) I am going to do like my friend 
upon my right, omit the best of my speech, and I am going, with delib- 
erate purpose, to endeavor to be serious for a moment and to repeat 
something that I said in New York four years ago, because it is a great 
pleasure to say to people, "I told you so.'' I said, speaking of the ques- 
tion which is eternally before us in the South — you know, we hear race, 
and race problems talked in the South, until we are almost ready to die 
when we hear the word mentioned. We live and move, and have our 
being, so far as the public prints are concerned, and largely, so far as 
public speeches are concerned, in race problems — problems that are in 
the paradoxical condition of being easiest solved by those who know 
the least about them. Now, when I was up in New York, four years ago, 
I said something, and in regard to that, I really think that I may say 
"I told you so." I said to my friends up there, and they were good enough 
to applaud it, whether from sympathy or approval, I do not know — I 
said to them, "You have your race problem up here, which is a more 
difficult and a more dangerous one than ours is." I tell you, my dear 
friends, that not only do we get along with our colored citizens down 
South, but we are the only people that can get along with them. (Applause.) 
Now, I say, that we are always receiving instructions in public morality; 
but, to my mind, the greatest danger that besets our moral body is indis- 
criminate foreign immigration. Now, the South is full of faults and 
does a great many wrong things, I know, but contrast the great North- 
western State of Minnesota, one of the most progressive and best States 



THE SOUTH IN THE REVOLUTION 101 

in the Union, against which I have nothing to say, of course, with its 
fifty per cent of foreign-born population, and the State of North CaroHna 
with less than two per cent of foreign-born white population. With us 
the immigration seems to follow other lines; it has not come South. We 
have no pauper immigration in the South, except a little in New Orleans, 
and that has been somewhat summarily treated, as some of you may 
remember. We have had almost none of it. I remember, that at the 
time of the great riot in Chicago, I saw a picture which I have never 
been able to forget. The artist had represented a little band of United 
States soldiers marching down the railroad track, and a mass upon either 
side of them, great armies of men and women with foreign faces. For- 
eign faces are not bad. We welcome every good man and every good 
woman to our country; (applause) but those were besotted and brutal 
foreign faces, and the legend that the artist had put under the picture 
was this: "To hell with the Government of the United States." And 
when President Cleveland sought, by pacific means, to quell the riot, 
it became necessary for him, I think, to print his programme in seven 
different languages. We receive, every year, dumped upon our shores, 
or rather, upon your shores, vast accumulations of the filth and the offal 
of the great cities of Europe, brought over here to ballast the great ocean 
steamships, and cast upon our shores, to rot and fester, and to breed 
assassins. We are charged in the South, not with fomenting, but, in a 
measure, with tolerating the crime — mark you, I call it a crime — of lynch- 
ing. Suppose, my fellow citizens, that we had in the South anywhere 
an established, permanent organization for the promotion of lynching, 
what would you say.? I call your attention to the fact that you have 
in your midst a well-known, organized establishment for the promotion 
of anarchy, and I have sometimes regretted that you did not send it 
down South, to learn how we deal with such things there. 

Now, gentlemen, let us be just and fair, one with the other. I have 
one word more to say before I submit to the execrations of these gentle- 
men, whose pardons I beg all that I can, and that is this, that we must 
learn to respect and trust one another. The Southern people are of 
the same blood that you are; they are of the same language that you are; 
they are of the same political principles that you are; (applause) they 
are of the same religion that you are; they have your traditions; they 
have your love of liberty; and they have your aspirations for their own 
success in the future, and for the success of our country. What shall 



102 THE SOUTH IN THE REVOLUTION 

we do, Standing and confronting, as we do today, the most difficult and 
the most dangerous social question ever presented to a people? We 
confront it, not without fear, but not without hope. We know that 
there is but one way in which we can deal successfully with that ques- 
tion, and that is, to the best of our ability, and with every effort that we 
command, to deal with it rightly and justly. It is my own belief that 
the people from whom Washington, and Marshall, and Jefferson, and 
Madison, and Lee, and Andrew Jackson, and Andrew Johnson, and 
James K. Polk were sprung, are not so perverted in their morals, and 
not so lost to every principle of decency and of civilization, that we can 
with deliberate purpose, malicious and foul intent, mistreat the colored 
race, who are our wards. (Applause: A voice, ''Never.") 

No : Any indictment of any great section of the American people, 
in any part of the country, is necessarily a false indictment. (Applause.) 

Now, I say, as my last words, the only way that we can deal with 
this question is the right way— the just, the honorable, the honest way; 
and, in the presence of our fellow-countrymen, and of all mankind, and 
of Providence, we intend to deal with it in that way, and that way only; 
and, finally, I say, recurring to my announced policy, that is my judg- 
ment that whatever the future may bring for our country, the best hope 
and the strongest assurance that we have that government of the people, 
by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth, is in 
the sturdy Americanism of the people of the Southern States. (Applause.) 




GOLDSMITH.* 

T would have been difficult to assign me a subject more to my 
liking. From my earliest recollection Goldsmith has been 
one of my chief sources of pleasure. I can not remember 
when I first read Irving's account of him, and I know that I 
have read it at least four times. I can not remember when I did 
not enjoy the "Deserted Village" more than any other poem in the lan- 
guage. Moses and the Spectacles are among the things which I seem 
to have known about always, even before I knew of Robinson Crusoe 
and Friday. When I avow my affection for the ''Deserted Village" I 
do not, of course, mean to affirm that it is the best or the greatest poem 
in the language, but only that to my untutored taste it is the sweetest. 
I have never been able to rise to critically correct judgments in literature, 
or indeed in anything else, but have acquired the bad habit of preferring 
what I like. Therefore I get more enjoyment out of the "Deserted 
Village" than from reading even Lycidas, or any other of the greater 
English short poems preferred and exalted by persons of more critical 
and of better judgment. 

I have had always a sympathy for the two reputed fools of the John- 
sonian epoch, Boswell and Goldsmith. In the case of Boswell, it is a 
mild sympathy combined with a moderate dissent; in that of Goldsmith, 
cordial sympathy, positive dissent, affection, and no little admiration. 
I have never been able to find in Boswell anything to which the 
affections could in any wise attach themselves, but with Goldsmith it is 
different. There are many faults, but we can not despise men because 
they have faults. Both Boswell and Goldsmith have been the victims 
of epigrams, and the butts of envious satire; Golsdmith even more than 
Boswell, certainly more unjustly. It was witty to say that Goldsmith 
wrote like an angel and talked like a parrot, and it sticks in the memory. 
I have heard men quote it who, I am sure, never had read a word of 
Goldsmith's works. Beyond question Goldsmith was one of the most 
graceful and happy writers, in prose and in verse, that the English speak- 
ing countries have produced, and it is not less true that, comparatively, 
his powers of conversation were strikingly inferior. But we exaggerate 
the difference, and what is more true and far more impoitant, we draw 
excessive inferences. Let us not forget that Johnson, who is credited 

♦Irving Club Paper. (103) 



104 GOLDSMITH 

with certain of the sharper sayings about Goldsmith, declared, post mortem, 
that he was a "very great man." I think that the plain facts of Goldsmiith's 
history give a clear insight into his character, and explain the striking inferior- 
ity of his conversation and conduct. I trust that I shall give no offense by 
the prelusory suggestion that the Irish nation, which has produced many of 
the most brilliant men of modern times, as well as an unlimited number of 
ancient and mediaeval monarchs, from whom no doubt several of us 
claim descent, has a certain intellectual headlongness which is very apt 
to be displayed in the unreserve of conversation, in the fervor of public 
speech, and in conduct under sudden or strong impulse. 

Goldsmith had this peculiarity in a pre-eminent degree. Inability 
to foresee the consequences of any course of action, or, apparently, of 
anything else was a congenital quality; an incurable prodigality marked 
him from childhood; an intensely emotional nature afforded every oppor- 
tunity to these peculiarities, and the conduct of his whole life was a series 
of blunderings followed by hard falls. If you will read his more thought- 
ful and aspiring prose writings you will see that he was as philosophical 
as Bacon or Plato in his mental habit, although indisputably less pro- 
found. His writings in serious vein are those of a learned and thoughtful 
man, his conduct that of an exceedingly thoughtless one, his conversation, 
frequently undignified, even trivial. Let us recall how he began to stum- 
ble and tumble through life and how he kept it up. 

Oliver Goldsmith was born Nov. lo, 1728, at the hamlet of Pallas, or 
Pallasmore, County Longford, Ireland. Irving says that his family was one 
of those that "seem to inherit kindliness and incompetency, and to 
hand down virtues and poverty from generation to generation." Oliver's 
father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, married very young and very poor, 
and whether or not he really felt "passing rich with forty pounds a year," 
he seems to have been put to the necessity for a time of maintaining a 
family which increased, with regularity and persistency, on an income 
which appears not to have exceeded that sum. About two years after 
Oliver's birth, however, an aunt of his mother died and a farm of seventy 
acres at Lissoy in the County of Westmeath fell to the family. Here 
Oliver's youth was passed, and there seems to be no doubt that Lissoy 
was the deserted village. At the age of six the future poet, having passed 
through the infant seminary kept by one of the village dames, was, for 
further instruction; committed to the guidance of one Paddy Byrne, who 
is described most delightfully in the poem of the "Deserted Village:" 



GOLDSMITH IO5 

'A man severe he was and stern to view. 



> 



I knew him well, and every truant knew; 
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace 
The day's disasters in his morning face; 
Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee. 
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; 
Full well the busy whisper circling round, 
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.'* 

This pedagogue seems to have had a character not unlike Oliver's in 
some respects, and among a large number of accomplishments of a minor 
kind he possessed a knack of rhyming with which the lad by whom he was 
to be immortalized was much taken. And so Oliver, while still in the 
lisping period, turned to numbers, much to the delight and pride of his 
mother, his first critic and confidante. The small-pox suspended his 
rhyming and separated him from Byrne. After his recovery he was 
placed under a preceptor, who bore the portentous name of Griffin, under 
whom, nevertheless, he made no particular progress. Mainly by virtue 
of his rhymes, however, he came to be looked upon as the genius of the 
family, no family being complete then, as now, without a genius, and 
therefore was regarded as especially fitted for college training. The 
family resources were not yet without limit and he was fortunate in evoking 
for the first of many times the generosity of an uncle, the Rev. Thomas 
Contarine. Thus aided he was sent successively to a school at Athlone, 
and to one at Edgeworthestown, in both of which he continued to display 
capacity, indolence and carelessness. The last of the places named was 
twenty miles from his home, and an incident of his final homeward jour- 
ney is at once an entertaining and important part of his history. 

The journey was marked by certain unwonted dignities, among them a 
horse and a guinea. These unusual features turned the head of Oliver, who 
was himself just turned sixteen, and he decided to make the most of his 
opportunities. Instead of completing the journey in one day, as he might 
have done, easily, he tarried for a night in the village of Ardagh. Call- 
ing upon the first person he met for directions to an inn, "the best house," 
he was directed to a family mansion, his informant being a professional 
jester. The house was owned by a Mr. Featherstone, who was some- 
what taken aback when this young and by no means imposing gentle- 
man rode up, peremptorily ordered his horse to be taken to the stable, 



I06 GOLDSMITH 

took possession of the parlor and imperiously required supper, but being 
an Irishman and not averse to his joke, he gave his guest full scope. 
At supper Oliver invited the landlord and his wife and daughter to join him, 
and, still further condescending, ordered a bottle of wine for their com- 
mon edification, and having finished gave special directions for a hot 
cake at breakfast. In the morning he was enlightened and we cannot 
doubt that he was properly confused and dismayed, but we must con- 
gratulate him upon the admirable use to which he puts the incident in 
"She Stoops to Conquer.'' 

Not to go too much into details of his early life, I mention that 
at the University of Dublin he was a sizer, or poor scholar, with free 
board and tuition, rendering such compensatory and indisputably 
valuable services as sweeping the courts, and carrying the dishes up 
from the kitchen at meal times. His teacher was devoted to the 
sciences and hard work, and he to the classics, and indolence. Clashes 
were made the more certain by the tutor's temper, which was one of the 
quickest and worst. Goldsmith's father died in 1747, and the unsatis- 
factory college course was prolonged with great difficulty by his uncle's 
charity, aided by occasional commerce with the pawnbrokers and the 
writing of street ballads. The climax of his college woes was reached 
upon a certain occasion when in violation of the rules he was feasting 
some friends in his room, a portion of these friends being ladies. The 
hilarity of the party attracted the attention and provoked the ready 
wrath of his tutor, who raging in upon the scene of the festivities first, 
after the good custom of the time, thrashed Goldsmith and then effected 
the contumelious ejection of his astonished and indignant guests. Humil- 
iated beyond measure, poor Oliver sold his books to raise money to carry 
him to parts remote, but could not forego the delights of Dublin until 
his funds were reduced to a single shilling. With this ample provision 
he started. For three days he subsisted upon his shilHng, and then re- 
vealing his forlorn condition to his brother, was prevailed upon to return 
to the University, where he remained two years longer. In 1749 he 
received the degree of B. A. and reluctantly consented to prepare for 
sacred orders, which he did by doing nothing for two years. In due 
time he presented himself to the Bishop and was rejected, some say on 
account of the scarlet breeches in which he affronted the Episcopal dig- 
nity. He then became a private tutor, and held that position until he 
quarreled with his employer. Then having bought a horse and having 



GOLDSMITH IO7 

in his pocket the unheard of sum of thirty pounds, he again started out 
to see the whole earth. A few weeks later he appeared at home without 
a shining, and reduced from his steed to a "sorry little pony," bearing 
the undignified name of Fiddle-back. The several occurrences above 
recited were regarded by the family as demonstrating an aptitude for 
the law, and his Uncle Contarine gave him fifty pounds with which he 
started for London and which, having progressed to Dublin, he lost to 
the last penny in a gambling house. It is related that the family now 
became disheartened, and, that some of them even manifested symptoms 
of impatience. 

Soon after this escapade one Dean Goldsmith, of Cloyne, the 
official head of the family, visited Uncle Contarine, and with a per- 
spicacity worthy of his high reputation discoverd in Oliver the capabil- 
ities of a doctor of physic. Thereupon, the Dean furnishing the advice, 
and Uncle Contarine the money, Oliver hied himself in 1752 to the ancient 
city of Edinburgh, where he attended lectures, squandered his money, 
cultivated conviviality, and, I am sorry to say, gambled a good deal. 
Having spent two winters in Edinburgh, he concluded that the proper 
development of his talents required a course in a Continental University. 
The unfailing uncle again became his banker, and aiming at Leith, in 
Holland, he landed at Bordeaux, which, everything considered, was for 
him an unusually accurate result. Thence he contrived to make his 
way to Leyden and the resumption of his studies in physic. Here he 
remained a year, in an unvarying state of extreme impecuniosity. Then 
he borrowed money to go to Paris, but it was the time of the tulip mania 
in Holland, and strolling one day in a garden he remembered that Uncle 
Contarine was a lover of tulips. Thereupon he bought a choice bulb, 
without asking the price, and was compelled to pay for it all the money 
he had borrowed. Having no hope of borrowing more he set out for a 
tour of the continent on foot, in February, 1755, being equipped for the 
undertaking with two shirts, one guinea and a flute. Undoubtedly he 
now became the philosophic vagabond of the Vicar of Wakefield. Some- 
how he got to Paris, where he attended lectures on Chemistry, and not less 
diligently went to the theatre. Thence he went to Germany and Switzer- 
land, and possibly, from Geneva, sent his brother a sketch which was the 
basis of his poem the Traveler. 

For two years he wandered footing and fluting over the continent, return- 
ing to England in 1 756. There he first appears definitely strolling the streets 



I08 GOLDSMITH 

of London, and then as an usher. In this last position he was very miserable, 
and apparently for good cause. Surrendering it in disgust he secured employ- 
ment as a chemist's assistant. A little later he met Dr. Sleigh, who had been 
his tutor at Edinburgh, by whose advice he attempted to practice medicine. 
The scarcity of patients drove him to the pen, and finally he was introduced 
to Richardson, the publisher and novelist. He was afterwards principal 
of an academy at Peckham for a while, but from his appearance at London 
his drift was toward literature, and the result is well known. Into his 
literary life with its alternating successes and failures, plenty and poverty, 
joys and sorrows, renown and miseries, I shall not enter in detail, for 
want of time. The facts which have been related are sufficient to show 
what manner of man he really was and to furnish the basis for a just 
judgment of him. It would be pleasant to me to carry the narrative 
further, to tell how Johnson sold the manuscript of the Vicar for him to 
pay him out of an arrest for debt; how the comedy of the Good Natured 
Man was played and failed; how She Stoops to Conquer was applauded 
into success on the first night by a claque headed by the greatest of all 
English moralists; how everybody fell in love with the poems as soon as 
they appeared; how Goldsmith became a professor without a salary; 
how he compiled histories of many nations, and wrote a grammar, and 
finally "expatiated free" over the whole field of animated nature; how he 
was lampooned, and suffered under it; how he became angry and at- 
tacked one of hi-s critics with a club; how he wantoned in luxury to-day, 
and wept in penury to-morrow; how he could not resist the gaming 
table, any more than an appeal from any source whatsoever to his liber- 
ality. It would not be pleasant, though, to tell how he died ten thousand 
dollars in debt by reason of his ill-ordered virtues, no less than his vices. 
I have recounted none of the incidents which show his generosity 
and his tenderness of heart, nor have I quoted from the rich store of his 
humor, but why prove what everybody knows? I append an incomplete 
list of his works : 

The Vicar of Wakefield, 1766. 
The Citizen of the World, 1 760-1 762. 
Essays, 1 758-1 765. 

Present State of Polite Learning, 1759. 
Life, Bolingbroke, 1770. 
* Life, Thos. Parnell, 1768. 
Life, Voltaire, 1759. 



GOLDSMITH lOQ 

Life, Richard Nash, 1759. 
The Traveler, 1764. 
Deserted Village, 1770. 
The Hermit (ballad), 1776. 
Retaliation, 1774. 
Good Natured Man, 1768. 
She Stoops to Conquer, 1773. 

History of England, . 

Short Survey of Experimental Philosophy. 

History of Philosophy. 

English Grammar. 

Roman History. 

Animated Nature, and a host of m.inor publications. 

Did ever author do things of so many kinds, so well? 

Johnson was a poet, but a very inferior one, a novelist before the full 
day of the modern novel, but not nearly so good as Goldsmith; an essayist, 
but his essays are now without readers; a dramatist, but a most prosy, 
ponderous and unsuccessful one. Goldsmith wrote the two best poems, 
the best story, and one of the best comedies of his age, was one of the 
most skillful compilers the world has ever seen, and certain of his original 
essays still hold high rank. I have never known a man or woman who 
had read anything that had not read the Vicar of Wakefield, I have 
never known anyone who cared for poetry that did not love the Traveler 
and the Deserted Village. She Stoops to Conquer will continue to 
be a favorite of play-goers until Salome and Sappho and their congeners 
monopolize the stage. These greater works of Goldsmith are beyond 
the need of history and criticism. The Vicar of Wakefield has entered 
into the very life of English speaking peoples, almost- as much as the 
King James translation of the Bible. It is a part of England and the 
English, of America and the Americans. We think and talk it uncon- 
sciously. In preparing for this paper I have tried to go beyond the better 
known works, and to extend my own knowledge. Having in my library 
three volumes, not much read, of his miscellaneous prose works, I have 
dipped into them, so far as time allowed, and have been well repaid. 
In literary quality they are equal to the best that we have seen from 
the author elsewhere. There are the same purity, felicity, and accuracy 
of diction, and a surprising thoughtfulness. You discover that the 
writer has read widely, and thought not a little; perhaps it is the kind of 



no GOLDSMITH 



thinking that comes from the activity of the logical faculty in writing 
rather than the fruit of habitual meditation, but it is very good, how^ever 
engendered. We were, or, at least I was, so long accustomed to think 
of the Vicar, and She Stoops to Conquer, and the Deserted Village, as 
abnormal productions, somewhat of the order of Blind Tom's compo- 
sitions in music, that it is extremely instructive and corrective to read 
Goldsmith's original essays. In the first few pages of the Polite Learning 
I found a suggestion of Buckle's dogma about the effects upon races of 
men of "Climate, food, soil and the aspects of nature," and a more remote 
suggestion of Comte's arrangement of the stages of human progress. I 
mention these things only as proofs that Goldsmith was not a fool with 
lucid intervals, but was really a man of learning and thought, whose 
few more famous writings are not the products of abnormal conditions, 
but are, instead, the natural and legitimate products of a genius of a high 
order, not of a gift of writing or expression, without any power of thought, 
but of a keen and cultivated intelligence with an almost unsurpassed faculty 
of utterance. 

These are pretty strong statements, and it may be that they 
are unnecessary, as you may not have received the impression that 
Goldsmith was an inspired fool, which was forced upon me by many 
readers and teachers of English in my youth. But was not he fool, after 
all, on one side? The theory of the simplicity and unworldliness of 
genius will not quite meet the demands of the case. Let me say first 
that his faults have been exaggerated. A Johnson, a Macaulay, a Carlyle, 
always puts things well and strongly. What they say is the strongest 
and most effective statement. It is the finished rhetorical view, always 
to be distrusted for accuracy, and rarely admitting any of the qualifi- 
cations, or displaying any of the tolerations that we of necessity and justice 
manifest in actual life. Again Goldsmith was a very conspicuous and 
much envied man, and it is altogether possible that while we know more 
of his faults than of those of less prominent men, he did not really have 
more than the average sane and prosaic man. Not less probable is it 
that jealousy has had something to do with the matter. If I say that 
Johnson had a hypochondria that amounted almost to insanity you will 
reply, *'yes, but he did not say or do so silly and childish things as Gold- 
smith did." I am not clear as to this proposition. However, I will not 
traverse it, but will admit that Goldsmith lacked dignity, and was over- 
impulsive, but we must not forget that the Great First Consul of France 



GOLDSMITH III 

played prisoner's base, and with the very same headlongness and failure 
to see obstacles and consequences that characterized Goldsmith, ran 
so fast and heedlessly that he was constantly breaking his consular shins 
and getting most unconsular tumbles. But Goldsmith was vain of per- 
son and apparel. Well, who is free from vanity of either kind ? Napoleon 
was the best dressed man in France, and the resistless Murat the most 
splendidly arrayed. Washington was of resplendent raiment, and Caesar 
was a sybarite in personal taste and habits. Plutarch will convince 
you that no man can be vainer than Cicero. Goldsmith was jealous, 
but less so than most men of renown, and his jealousy was evanescent, 
died in a moment. He lacked self-control, but that is one of the cus- 
tomary and tolerated peculiarities of genius, and especially of the poetical, 
and idealistic temperament, and it was much less conspicuous in him 
than in Shakespeare, Byron, Shelly, Keats or Poe. These are some of 
the more effective palliations for indisputable weakness that occur to 
me now. Their sufficiency may be questioned, but I trust that you will 
not consider them as entirely without validity. 

As this section of our studies is devoted to novelists, let me say a 
little more as to the Vicar of Wakefield in conclusion, and in technical 
fulfillment of my assignment. I assume that everyone knows the book, 
and has read it several times. I do not know to what extent, if any, it is 
going out of fashion in the present sophisticated generation, but to my 
generation and the one preceding it, the Vicar was next after the Bible. 
No contemporary or elder of my time but knew Dr. Primrose, his piety, 
his patience, his loquacity, his pedantry, undeniable, but inoffensive; 
his pride of learning and of family, his charity, and finally his over- 
whelming and undeserved, though ultimately, well rewarded woes. It 
is very clear that the clever but uninventive Goldsmith was making use of 
Job, when he portrayed Dr. Primrose, clothing the man of Uz in eighteenth 
century clericals. The origin of the incomparable Doctor is the more mani- 
fest in the fact that in the beginning he was that rare phenomenon, a rich 
preacher. But his riches, like Job's, took wings and flew away; the com- 
mercial achievements of Moses, his son, depleted the pitiful residue, and 
his own gullible kindness completed the waste; fire destroyed his house; 
a villian ran away with his daughter Olivia; the same villian had put 
him in jail for debt; then he was told of the death of the erring but re- 
pentant Olivia; in the jail he worked wonders of benevolence and refor- 
mation, then he heard of the kidnapping of his other daughter, and finally 



112 GOLDSMITH 

his first born son was brought to the jail in chains. Then it is that, like 
Job, he reaches the limit of endurance, and happily also the turning 
point of his fortunes. The real hero of the play rescues the kidnapped 
daughter, his son is cleared, the dishonored Olivia, supposed to be dead, 
re-appears, and a reformed villian reveals that she v^^as lawfully married 
and is an honest woman. The hero, who has been masquerading as a 
poor man, proves to be a rich baronet, of much renown, and marries the 
rescued daughter. The lost fortune is found, all the girls in the book 
are happily married; virtue is richly rewarded on every hand; vice is 
condignly punished; joy is unconfined, and it was not less true of the 
Vicar than of Job, that his latter end was blessed more than his beginning. 
Hear him say: "I had nothing now on this side of the grave to wish for; 
all my cares were over; my pleasure was unspeakable. It now only 
remained that my gratitude in good fortune should exceed my former 
submission in adversity." The dear Doctor is not made perfect. I 
have learned not to class pedantry, in its milder forms at least, as a failing, 
but then the Doctor had also temper, though not much, and vanity, 
though in amiable manisfestation, and was not without recognition of 
the importance of wealth and social position. His wife was a weaker 
vessel, though a sound one. Her social aspirations, her maternal man- 
euvers, are not, however, so much reprehensible as entertaining, and, 
upon the whole, while she shed '*some natural tears," like her mother Eve 
she**wiped them soon," and played the part of the spouse of her afflicted Job 
fairly well. The girls are all amiability and sweetness, not without weakness, 
and so soon as we find that Olivia was really married we readily forgive 
the elopement. That Sophy should marry the disguised baronet is most 
acceptable. There is nothing that people enjoy in a book so much as 
the marriage of a good and beautiful heroine to a brave and rich hero. 
Such a union is the only proper or even tolerable ending for a novel, and 
I join most heartily with that large and intelligent element of society 
which demands that all novels end happily. So far as the realities of 
life are concerned, we cannot have our own way, and many bad endings 
are inevitable, but your novelist is your genuine magician and can make 
his own endings, and he is a wilful, perverse and morbid nuisance if he 
allows them to be bad. Sometimes he says his art requires the death of 
his hero or heroine, and the omission of the wedding, but for my part I 
say that such miscarriages and fiascoes can result only from the want 
of art. Given a hero and a heroine of marriageable age, the wedding is 



GOLDSMITH II3 

the only natural, proper or permissible finale. Goldsmith gives us two 
weddings and reveals a third. This is a good measure and a grateful 
public has applauded him accordingly for a hundred and fifty years. 
Burchill, the concealed baronet, is a fine fellow, and plays well the 
part of Prince Bountiful. Moses I love for his trading. My affections 
extend to Dick and Bill, and indeed, embrace most cordially all the 
Primroses. To a man or woman who likes the atrabilious books of Mr. 
Hall Caine, or the artificial problems and philosophic dabblings of Mrs. 
Humphrey Ward; or the esoteric exposition of the warfare of the sexes 
and the tentative marriages of Mr. George Meredith; or the filthiness 
which Mr. Thomas Hardy calls purity; or who kow-tows and then kow- 
tows again when Balzac's name is named, and demands clamorously 
for the author of the Droll Stories, the place so long held by the unworthy 
author of Hamlet; this simple, little and hopelessly clean book, a re- 
dressing of the age-old story of Job, with a little of the crude art of the 
m.ediaeval novel, and of the cruder art of the fairy tales, must of neces- 
sity be a very trifling affair. And yet it lives — lives lustily, with reasonable 
promise of living always. I do not attempt to explain its im.mortality, 
but am content with the fact. 

It gives me great joy to believe that Mr. Thomas Hardy's essays in 
lubricity, heralded with loud trumpeting, supremely excellent from the 
critical point of view, and of assured immortality, have lapsed into com- 
parative obscurity in a decade, while Dr. Primrose has outdone Job in 
respect of living. For Job, after his troubles, lived 140 years, while the 
Doctor now fives in the hearts of millions of readers, after almost 150 
years. One more heterodox remark and I pass on. I profess my total in- 
ability to see why there is not as much human nature in the Vicar as in 
that famous and much praised story by Balzac, wherein a father forwards 
the happiness of his daughter by aiding her in the most shameful courses. 
At the same time I do not claim to know much of the middle class human 
nature of Paris, and I suppose there is no use denying that the ugly 
things in human nature alone are worthy of the novelists' attention. 

I see that I have strayed pretty far from my subject, and so returning, 
let me say of the Vicar that it is a good story; one that interests the reader, 
which I make bold to declare the first merit of a story. It has a plot well 
worked out. It is not devoid of incident, but it is not a story of action. 
It is rich, opulent in humor; it abounds in sentiment, of the right kind, 
and without excess. It has an elopement, but the breaking of the 



114 GOLDSMITH 

seventh commandment is not the predominant theme, as it is in so many 
of the m.ost approved novels of our time. It is a decent, clean story. 
Our children read it, and ought to read it. It is vvrritten, as all of Gold- 
smith's w^orks are, delightfully. It has been one of the most popular 
books in the w^orld, ever since it was published, and it deserves all its 
popularity. It may be taken as certain that Dr. Primrose is a free-hand, 
but not irreverent or unfilial sketch of Goldsmith's father. If it be true 
that Mr. Micawber v^as drav^n from the father of Charles Dickens, it 
must be conceded that Goldsmith v^as a much more respectful son than 
Dickens, for the good doctor is a very fine and lovable character. Moses 
has so many of Oliver's ow^n traits that the connection between the two is, 
to me, very apparent. Commercially Moses is indisputably Oliver. 

It seems to be true that in all his imaginative writings Goldsmith 
drew constantly on his own experiences and therefore there is a sort of 
photographic verity in his portrayals of incident and character very ex- 
ceptional in such works. He holds the mirror up to nature in a very real 
sense, and I think the capacity which he displays constantly to idealize 
and adorn the actual and the commonplace, without any sacrifice of 
essential truth, is the first and highest quality of a novelist. It seems 
to be a maintainable generalization that the poems and novels that deal 
thus with the actual life in all its details, are the most favored and ad- 
mired, as well as the most valuable. Is not this the cause, in large part, 
of the high esteem in which the Homeric Epics are held .'' Possibly the 
remark will apply to the intellectual, as well as the natural life, and will 
explain in part the vitality of the Divine Comedy by its fidelity to the 
intellectual life of the middle ages. However, I will not press the propo- 
sition too far. It should be remembered that while Goldsmith's ability to 
work over the incidents of actual life for literary uses was one of his 
conspicuous virtues, the extent to which he carries the habit indicated also 
a deficiency. That he lacked invention, or did not often employ it, can 
hardly be denied. His use of the things he had seen and done was very 
like the use he made of other men's works in his compilations. As it is 
difficult to see how an Irishman could have been entirely without in- 
vention, we may attribute this reminiscent habit, in part, to indolence, 
in which we know Goldsmith was not lacking. 

I am willing to admit that in his work in verse and in prose, there is an 
equality, or, to put it badly, a sameness. Uniform excellence is a char- 
acteristic. It may not be claimed that it is the highest excellence, but it is 



GOLDSMITH II5 

excellence. The heights which Shakespeare trod are far beyond him 
as a poet; he has none of the passion of Shelley, and his melodies do not 
soar like those of Burns, but flow gently in minor tones, always affecting, 
pleasing, restful. 

I have heard in a great harmony, whose highest excellences were beyond 
my comprehension, a soft, subdued contralto, inaudible at times when 
the sopranos were soaring heavenward, the tenors trumpeting, and the 
basses roaring, but in unstressed intervals sounding sweetly on its me- 
lodious way. I do not wish to mix figures, or to forget that the alto is 
a feminine voice, but I will risk saying that in the mighty chorus of 
English song Goldsmith is to me like this sweet unaspiring voice, singing 
its almost unvarying song, its simple melody, and I do not hear a sweeter 
one. 

With renewed apologies for these unwonted and inexpert figures of 
speech, I reaffirm in plain words my love of Goldsmith's poetry, my joy 
in the Vicar, and my cordial affection for the author. 



PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING.* 

In this time of unlimited and apparently illimitable reformation, 
when the old maxim is reversed by many wise men and wise women, 
who say that whatever is is wrong, it is an invidious undertaking to dis- 
cuss something which has not only the fault of existing now, in modified 
form, but which is burdened with the additional, and even graver infirm- 
ity of having existed heretofore. 

The word Puritan is applied in English and American history to 
the religious society that became prominent and powerful at the period 
of the great revolution of the seventeenth century in England and fur- 
nished the first settlers of the New England States. The name is now 
confined to the Calvinists; but the first English Puritans were of the 
Church of England, and wished to remain in it. 

I give to the word, for my purpose this evening, a much wider appli- 
cation. The peculiarity from which the name arose, was a literal inter- 
pretation and acceptance of the teachings of the Bible, especially of the 
Old Testament, and a rigid conformity of life to them. 

It is my intention to consider briefly certain facts in the histories of 
the more important associations of men that have thus accepted the 
Hebrew Scriptures, and to point out some of the results accomplished 
by them. I shall consider the Puritan polity as a scheme of living in 
the world, directing attention especially to practical results. I shall 
invite your attention to the Jews, the Dutch Puritans, the English Puri- 
tans, the Huguenots, and the Scotch Covenanters. My purpose is, 
chiefly, to inquire what Puritanism has done for the world, and not 
whether the Puritan Theology is sound or unsound. In showing what 
Puritans have done, I do not mean to deny that others have likewise 
done much good. 

I call the Jews the first Puritans, because the Mosaic law was made 
primarily for them. It was to be observed literally by them and was so 
observed by them, in the most excellent periods of their history. 
The story of the Jews is the most wonderful thing recorded of the 
human race. It is reasonably certain that the Decalogue was the law 
of the Jews more than three thousand years ago. Even German criti- 
cism concedes it to be twenty-five hundred years old; and today it is 

♦Delivered at Forefatliers-Day Service, Pilgrim Church, Knoxville, Tcmimossoo, December 21, 
1S97. (117) 



Il8 PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 

taught to our children, as the essence of the ethics of this modern and 
most enhghtened time. Modern civilization rests on the Decalogue. 
The Exodus of the Jews was perhaps the most important event in human 
history before the coming of Christ. Their leader, Moses, was one of 
the greatest and wisest of men. At that time the great power in the 
world, the most cultured and refined nation, was Egypt. But 
the Jews did not get their law from Egypt. At the highest point 
in Egyptian history, religion was degraded by the most absurd and cruel 
superstitions. Great gods resided in gross animal forms. Crocodiles, 
cats, all manner of vermin were sacred. Religion was a conglomerate 
of horrors and absurdities, and yet not without lofty spiritual suggestions. 
The Egyptian polity, with its rigid and crucial laws of caste, its degrada- 
tion of the great mass of men and women, its heartless brutalizing sys- 
tem of slavery, accomplished some splendid material things; but for 
the people at large, a worse scheme could not have been conceived. 
It was at the end of centuries of bondage, in that country, that the 
Jews received from Moses, a man born in Egypt, and possessed of all 
its learning, a system of law as different from the Egyptian, as light 
is from darkness, as witness the larger outline of the system. 
A conspicuous fault of the Egyptian, as of all ancient societies of 
men, was the subordination and debasement of the common people. 
The Mosaic system was an agricultural democracy, whose earthly rulers 
were the Judges and Elders, and whose head was Jehovah. The laws 
of Moses affected all Jews alike. There was no King. There was 
no nobility, no privileged class, save the priesthood; and to the priests, 
as to the people, the law applied in all its force. Thus for the first time 
in the world's history was the dignity and the right of the individual 
declared and maintained by law. The first Democracy was proclaimed 
by Moses, the Jew. 

The great overshadowing, pervasive and destroying crime of ancient times 
was lubricity, a crime that more than all other influences eventually 
corrupted, degraded, subverted empires and civilizations. Against 
every form of brutalism, the Mosaic law proclaimed the severest penal- 
ties. In this respect, Jewish civilization stands above all others of ancient 
times, as high as the heavens are above the earth. Other nations wor- 
shiped many gods, the sun, the stars, the moon, the generative power 
of nature, the beasts of the field. The Hebrew worshiped one God, 
who was a spirit, the embodiment of all goodness, all wisdom, all power. 



PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING II9 

For every department, every aspect of life, the laws of Moses wisely 
and thoroughly provided. We are told that the Jews were an unruly, 
headstrong, fickle and ungrateful race. So they were. And so have 
been all other races of men. We must bear in mind the fact that, at first, 
the Jews were not a highly civilized people. The times of their early 
history were rude and barbarous. We who believe in an over-ruling 
and beneficent Providence do not assert that God seized upon these 
people and miraculously enlightened them by a leading-string, guiding 
them in every act of their lives, and vainly endeavored to perfect them 
instantly. We believe that in His plan for the uplifting of the race. 
He committed to them the essential truths of religion, as depositaries 
for the benefit of all men. But when this was done, they were not in- 
stantly lifted above other people. They were not to be miraculously 
perfected. They were to rise, by slow degrees, as other men. Never- 
theless it is true that the Jews not only had the true religion, but were 
within a few generations after the Exodus the most enlightened, moral 
and righteous people of ancient times. 

Much can be justly said against them, judged by the standards of our 
own time; but if we contrast them with the peoples about them their 
history is a line of dazzling light, shining through many ages in the midst 
of black, awful, unrelieved darkness. For instance, every reader of 
the Old Testament will know that, in a sense, there was a rivalry 
between Baal the false, and Jehovah the true God. This Baal was 
the god of Babylon, of Phenicia, of Carthage, of Philistia, and, under 
other names, of probably all races who were neighbors of the Jews. 
Baal was the masculine element in the generative power of Nature, 
and Ashtaroth — or Astarte, the female. The twain were worshipped 
together, and this religion, from one point of view, was a brutalism so 
gross, so utterly disgusting, so abominable, that in contemplating it, 
the imagination is aghast and horrified, and decency paralyzes the tongue 
that would describe it. 

The enemy of the Bible condemns the laws of Moses and denounces 
the Jewish civilization as narrow, harsh, and cruel. Let him study to 
know the facts. If he turn to Babylon, with all her splendors, he will 
find the honor of women the most grateful offering to Baal and Astarte. 
In Philistia, in Moab, in Edom, the same abomination existed. In 
great Tyre and Sidon, twin leaders of Phenician civilization, were tem- 
ples dedicated to this infamous Astarte. I wish that all critics of 



120 PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 

the Hebrews might read in Flaubert's awful novel, Salammbo, the 
story of the sacrifice of babes to Baal-Moloch. I shall never rid my 
mind of its horrors. I see the great brazen image of Moloch tower- 
ing above an innumerable company of worshipers. In its bosom 
glows a furnace more than seven times heated. The priests surround 
the god, shouting, leaping, screaming, lashing their bodies with cruel 
whips, or brandishing knives, that reek with their own blood. In the 
bosom of Moloch, the fire burns even hotter and hotter; the shouts 
of the devotees grow louder and louder; they bleed until the sacred place 
is a shamble, while sickening perfumes poison the air, which is electric 
with excitement and terror. The scene surpasses any that Dante imag- 
ined. Many worshipers fall from sheer exhaustion, they lie scattered 
or heaped before the glowing Moloch. Others come bearing burdens 
in their hands. These burdens are children, their mouths bandaged 
so that they may not cry aloud when the god shall take them to his bosom! 
They are cast down before Moloch, scores — it may be hundreds — of in- 
nocent babes, bound with cords and stifled. The mighty arms of 
the god are made to rise and fall by an ingenious mechanism. 
The work of propitiation, of sacrifice, begins. Behold the love of 
this great Moloch for little children! The chains clank, the brazen 
arms reach down, the great hands are empty, but as they rise, they 
are filled with little children. Higher and higher they rise, till at 
last the living load is cast into the consuming fire that burns in Moloch's 
breast. The trumpets clang, the great drums roar, every instrument 
of music sounds loud, the priests shout, the multitude screams frantically 
to drown all other noises, for not always can the god prevent the sounds 
that seem like screams of agony, even though they come from the bosom 
of Moloch; and not every mother gives her child to Moloch without a 
pang. The hands of the god move swiftly, the clanking of the chains 
is incessant, and the frenzy of the crowd waxes, as the terror of the awful 
scene pervades it more and more, until one inconceivable, universal, 
overwhelming madness and delirium possesses it, and the scene becomes 
one that would shame and revolt the nethermost hell itself! And so this 
frightful thing, this maddened rout, rages and raves, and ever the hands 
of the god are filled, until at last the heart of Moloch is gorged, the fires 
overfed and stifled; and then is great Moloch appeased, literally glutted 
with the victims whose scorched but unconsumed carcasses fester in this 
horrid embrace! 



PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 121 

Such was the worship of Baal in its most cruel form, but not the most 
degraded! And Baal was the mighty god of nearly every people with 
whom the Jews came in contact before the conquest of Cyrus. You 
may say that, though the religion of the Jews was free from the abom- 
inable obscenities and horrid butcheries, it remains true that the laws 
of Moses were cruel. I affirm that the Jews were the most humane peo- 
ple, and their laws the most humane laws of ancient times; and they 
may be justly judged only by the standards of their own time. Say 
what you will of the Jew, in that ancient time, he was an angel of light, 
when compared with the men who lived about him, and his superiority 
he owed to the law which was a part of his life. 

The immeasurable superiority of the Jewish law and religion is shown 
in results. We have in the book of Judges the history of a period of 
more than four hundred years. The superficial reader will think that 
this period was one of incessant strife and bloodshed. But in fact, the 
disturbances cover less than a hundred years; so that from the Conquest 
to the Monarchy, were three centuries of peace and prosperity, of intel- 
lectual and moral growth. The real history of these years was not in 
the Homeric narrative of Judges, but in that beautiful pastoral, the 
book of Ruth. And never, I believe, was the ideal of human society 
more nearly approached than during those tranquil, halcyon years, 
when the God of Israel was the Ruler of an obedient people. There 
is no more charming picture of peaceful, simple and happy life in all 
literature than the book of Ruth. In this era the Jews were Puritans 
indeed. 

The stormy period of transition, from the Theocracy to the Mon- 
archy, ended with the establishment of the throne of David. This was 
the crowning period of Jewish history, a thousand years and more be- 
fore Christ. Greek civilization was not yet born. Legend even does 
not place the Trojan war so far in the past. Five centuries were to 
elapse before Greece could procure an y^schylus, but, mark the height 
to which the Jews had risen! Who has attained a higher spiritual devel- 
opment than David the Jew? He had grave faults, and suffered for 
them; but intellectually and morally, he stands among men unsurpassed. 
He was a scholar, a soldier, a poet, a philosopher, a statesman and a 
prophet. He organized, from discordant elements, a compact kingdom, 
and led its army to many conquests. He. restored the purity and re-es- 
tablished the strictness of the true religion. He was a Puritan of the 



122 PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 

Puritans. He was a poet, and his songs have been sung for thirty cen- 
turies. They are the fittest vehicle of the highest and noblest aspira- 
tions of the human heart. For beauty and grandeur, they have never 
been surpassed. The human mind can show no nobler products. 
This was the flowering-time of a splendid civilization. David was 
not the only poet. The Psalms are not all his. There were other poets, 
scarcely less gifted than he. There was a noble national literature, 
much of which has perished, though much remains. There were poets, 
prophets, seers, historians. I dare say there was as much intellectual 
and literary activity in Jerusalem, in the time of David and Solomon, 
as there was in Athens in the age of Pericles; and this was five hundred 
years before Pericles. This was a result of Puritanism, of Bible living. 
Disobedience and decay followed the death of David. Centuries 
later, after the captivity, there was a new era of prosperity. The high 
spiritual quality of the national mind, begotten by right living under 
right laws, was not extinguished, and hence it was that, in the time of 
Christ, there were men like John and Luke and Paul, with the spiritual 
strength and insight to grasp the full meaning of the sublimest of all 
religious teachers. Whatever may have been the condition of the race as a 
whole, at that time, it produced the religious leaders who revolutionized the 
world; and it cannot be denied thatthesemen were the legitimate products 
of the spiritual and intellectual life of the race in preceding centuries. The 
religion of the Jews has remained always a part of the life of the peo- 
ple and of each individual. Among no other people has religion so 
saturated and shaped character. Eighteen centuries have passed away 
since the nation was destroyed, and yet the race survives, strong in num- 
bers, in wealth and intelligence. Never has it been so powerful as it 
is today. Never was it more intelligent. Never was the race-char- 
acter more clearly defined. Never were the Jews more distinctly sepa- 
rate from other men, than they are today. 

Departed though they are from their ancient standards, in many 
ways they reap still the legitimate fruit of a persistent adherence to the 
letter of the law of Moses. If there are many who despise them, if 
heartless persecutions of centuries have warped and degraded them, 
it is not the fault of their system. Rather it is by virtue of it, that they 
are still unmixed, a powerful race despite sufferings, wrongs and perse- 
cutions, such as' have never been visited upon any other race of men. 
However little we may see of cause and effect in the things I have 



PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 1 23 

recounted, it is certain that the first real civilization, the first in which 
moral and spiritual elements were dominant, was that of the Jews; and 
that no race has survived so long, nor outlived so many misfortunes, as this 
first Puritan race. Abraham came out of Chaldea, but for four thousand 
years there has been no Chaldea. The Jew saw the pyramids built in Egypt; 
and the Jew and the pyramids still survive, while Egypt is only a name. 
The Jew was the captive of Assyria; but the Jew lives, while Nineveh was 
obliterated twenty-five hundred years ago. The Jew was a slave in 
Babylon; and today a Jewish antiquarian may delve into the rubbish 
heaps, that for twenty centuries have covered the site of Babylon. The 
Greeks subdued the Jews; but there are millions of descendants of Abra- 
ham, and probably not one Greek of the pure blood. And there is a 
single Jew who is a mightier power than all the hybrid race who bear 
the name of Greek. The Roman laid his iron hand on the Holy City, 
and destroyed the temple; but the Jews are mighty upon the earth, and 
there is not one Roman left. Every Christian nation, except our own, 
has persecuted the Jews; but now the crowned heads of Europe tremble 
at the frown of the Jewish bankers. While the Jew lived according 
to the law, he surpassed all other men, and centuries of bad living have 
not overcome the results of this good living. Puritanism still bears 
fruit. The point I seek to illustrate is not so much the inherent and indis- 
putable superiority of the Jewish code over all others of ancient times, 
as that this superiority was demonstrated in practical results. Whether 
it was divinely given or not, it proved to be the best of all laws of ancient 
times to live by. Above everything stands the fact that from this first 
Puritan race we derive the religion that has revolutionized and con- 
quered the earth, and built up a civilization, beside which all others are 
insignificant, and which promises the fulfilment of the best and highest 
aspirations of mankind. The Christian says the Jews were the trustees 
from the beginning of the one true religion. All men must admit that 
from them has come the ethical element of our modern civilization, the 
excellence, the glory of that civilization. I do not doubt that the Jews, if 
they had been Christians, would have led the world from the Christian 
era. Their civilization is two thousand years older than ours, and all 
the misfortunes of the race in Christian times have resulted from their re- 
jection of the Truth, first revealed to them — rejected by most of them — 
but imparted to other nations by a few of them. 

Passing over many centuries, let us consider the Puritans of modern 



124 PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 

times. A saying of John Fiske's concerning the New England Puritans 
applies to all modern Puritans: "The impulse by which they were ani- 
mated was a profoundly ethical impulse — the desire to lead Godly lives 
and to drive out sin from the community — the same impulse which ani- 
mates the glowing pages of Hebrew poets and prophets, and which has 
given to the history and literature of Israel their commanding influence in the 
world.'* It should be understood, without saying, that there have been mul- 
titudes of Puritans who have not borne that name. The great Augus- 
tine, whose intellect dominated Christian theology for many centuries, 
was a Puritan. Bernard of Clairvaux, whose purity of life, sublime 
piety, matchless courage and invincible force made him one of the grand- 
est leaders of men, was everything that the word implies. And so was 
John Henry Newman, the Roman Cardinal, who proved that even in 
this age men may rise to the ideal of Christian character and living. 
But my attention must be confined to the compacted bodies of men who 
are known as Puritans. In no other way can I so clearly connect causes 
and effects. 

There is no country of modern times whose history contains more 
to justify pride than Holland. This little people led the way to the 
enlightenment of modern Europe. The Dutch were the first real bankers 
in Europe; the first to understand the principles of political economy; 
the first to systematize trade; the first to establish a satisfactory system 
of exchange; the first to realize that in commerce the thing most essential 
is honesty; the first to develop agriculture, and among the first to attain 
excellence in art. They were the leaders of modern democracy. They 
made the first written constitution to bind men together in free com- 
munity. They made the grandest fight for liberty that is recorded in 
human history. The struggle between the Netherlands and Spain is, 
I believe, the most tragic, the most cruel and relentless on the one hand, 
the most heroic and admirable on the other, that ever occurred. 
And this was a struggle of a handful of Puritans against the domi- 
nant world-power. The Dutch revival was a Puritan revival. The 
Dutch civilization was a Puritan civilization. And if we turn from 
these great and heroic things, to commonplace affairs, we shall find our- 
selves in these also deeply indebted to the Dutchmen. We read in his- 
tory and in romance of the field of the cloth of gold, of the tourney at 
Ashby, of gorgeous coronations, splendid pageants — and we think of 
the Middle Ages as a time of gallant knights who glittered in armor. 



PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 1 25 

of Stately dames who rustled in velvets and brocades, of queens and 
kings in dazzling jewels and gorgeous robes. We fail to realize that 
behind all this barbaric show and glitter there is a sordid and squalid 
background — a seamy-side to the cloth of gold. Cleanness was not in 
the calendar of mediaeval virtues. The frightful plagues that swept 
away from Europe, with equal hands, the clouted peasant, the belted 
knight, and the crowned monarch, were the natural and inevitable con- 
sequences of unclean living. It was filth and not the "Wandering Jew" that 
brought the plague. The Dutch Puritans were the first people in Europe to 
be clean, and the first to be comfortable. The traveller from England or 
France to Holland, three centuries ago, was impressed with nothing so much 
as the cleanness and the comfort of the towns, the houses and the people. 
A street in London or Paris was a sewer as well as a thoroughfare. In 
Antwerp it was a clean and stately avenue. The dining rooms of the 
grand castles in France and England were strewn with rushes, into which 
were cast the bones and meats from the table, there to remain until the 
dogs found them, or necessity compelled their removal. The Dutch- 
woman's floor was scrubbed and immaculate. Her utensils dazzled the 
eye. The Dutchman's house was glazed. The Frenchman's window, 
like the Englishman's window, was a hole in the wall. And from Hol- 
land went out a gradually widening wave of cleanness and comfort, at 
the same time that the Dutch were teaching Europe the principles of 
finance and trade, establishing common schools and universities, pro- 
claiming the principles of international law, leading the way to liberty 
of thought, of speech, of religion, and proving by the example of their 
matchless courage and fortitude, that common traders and artisans 
could not only be patriotic and unselfish, but as brave and chivalrous 
as any paladin that ever rode to battle. 

I admit the excellency of the institution of chivalry. I am fasci- 
nated by mediaeval history and romance. Froissart filled my young 
imagination with pictures of marvelous splendor, and gave to my days 
and nights surpassing pleasure. I love all the heroes of chivalry — real 
or unreal — Roland, Arthur, Bayard, Richard of the lion-heart, Ivan- 
hoe. But truth compels me to say that all the deeds of all the knights 
are as dust in the balance, when weighed against the achievements of 
these brave Dutch traders, tanners, and blacksmiths. While the 
Dutch Puritans were so bravely fighting for their principles, their 
fellow religionists in England were growing steadily in numbers 



126 PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 

and in power. The day was drawing on when the singers of Psalms 
would deal to royalty a blow from which it would never recover. We 
know these English Puritans best, and they are the best abused of all. 
They lived in this world only as preparing for a better. Life was a respon- 
sibility not to be lightly treated. They believed in the direct and con- 
stant supervision of affairs by the Creator. They were confident of the 
efiicacy of prayer, and bowed frequently and long at the throne of grace. 
Accepting literally all that the Bible said, they mortified the flesh, and 
sought opportunity to show contempt for worldliness. They regarded 
themselves as the chosen people of God, no less than the Israelites. By 
fasting, prayer and meditation on the future state, they wrought them- 
selves to a high pitch of nervous excitement and saw visions, denounced 
judgment and punishment, and uttered prophecies. Display in dress 
was an abomination, and they clad themselves in garments of somber 
color and sober cut. Their music was the Psalms of David, stretched, 
not unfrequently, on racks of doleful melody or awful discord. Having 
the vision of eternity ever before them, they made their faces long and 
sober, and often sour. They affected Scripture names along with others 
of pious suggestion, that the most friendly must call absurd. By reason 
of his unique name, **Praise-God-Barebone," and his brother, "If-Christ- 
had-not-died-for-you-you-had-been-Damned-Barebone," have fame al- 
most as wide as Oliver Cromwell. The lives of these Puritans, to us 
of these soft times, were hard, their morals severe, their manners, save 
to the initiate, extremely repellent. For all these things the gay and 
gallant cavaliers ridiculed them till a certain time. 

This is the Puritan considered superficially. But beneath all this 
oddity, exaggeration, cant, absurdity if you will, there was the substance 
of grand and noble character. There were hypocrites and demagogues, 
of course, but with few exceptions they were what they claimed to be — 
men who feared God, and Him only. A more upright, honest. God- 
fearing race of men never lived on the earth. If they were indifferent 
or opposed to the pleasures of life, as we esteem them, they were faith- 
ful to every duty. They were as fearless, as faithful, as sternly virtuous, 
as Samuel, or Nathan, or Elijah, their ideals. It is only just to say 
that the hardness, the roughness of their natures, have been grossly exag- 
gerated. In the struggle for civil and religious liberty, against prerogative 
and tyranny, they were all, with one accord, on the side of liberty. Then 
it was that the plumed and swaggering cavaliers learned the equality 



PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 1 27 

of the Psalm-singers. Before the wars were ended, the Puritans had organ- 
ized an army, which, I do not hesitate to say, was the best that ever went to 
battle. When the sword had settled the dispute, it was the Puritan alone 
that had the courage of his convictions, and dared follow his logic to 
its conclusion. If ever the people had felt that they were greater than 
the king, the growth of prerogative under the Tudors, had stifled the 
sentiment. The king was the captive of the Puritans. What should 
be done with him.?* At the very suggestion of punishing him, all Europe 
stood aghast. But the Puritan held steadily on his way, and the world 
beheld the awful spectacle of a king beheaded, by common men, under 
form of law. In that age it was the Puritan alone who would have 
dared to shed the sacred blood of royalty. The execution of Charles 
Stuart by the Puritans marks an era in which men began to be free in very 
truth. In this time, overshadowing and dwarfing all other men, appeared 
one Puritan who embodied all the virtues and strength, and it may be, 
all the faults of his kind. Among the three or four greatest men of action 
of modern times there is no more unique or impressive figure than Oliver 
Cromwell. If the course of events made him a monarch, in fact, though 
not in name, it is nevertheless true that he was one of the most powerful 
instrumentalities in the hands of Providence for establishing human 
freedom. No race but the Puritans could have produced such a man, 
and none but the Puritans would have upheld him. For centuries 
obloquy obscured his name, but at last the world is admitting the truth 
that this Puritan was one of its greatest statesmen and administrators, 
as well as one of its greatest soldiers. 

The English Puritans were, as a rule, from the middle classes, the 
most conservative and the best educated — the substance of the nation. 
But I must not omit to say that in all England there was not at this time 
a more outspoken friend of liberty than Richard Hooker, the English 
churchman, the author of the great book which, after the King James 
Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, is the noblest monument of 
English prose in that generation. 

Another Puritan body of great historical importance was the Hugue 
nots. They were also Covenanters, as their name — "Oath-Brothers" — 
implies. Like all Calvinists they were Democrats, and in the day of 
their strength, made in France the beginnings of free institutions, mod- 
elled upon those of Holland and Switzerland. They, too, were prin- 
cipally of the middle class. Before their persecution by Louis XIV., 



128 PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 

they numbered two million souls. They had seven hundred churches. 
Never have the higher qualities of human nature been more beauti- 
fully manifest than among these French Puritans. They loved liberty, 
loved their fellow men, and loved God. They excelled in learning and 
in all useful and elegant arts. They produced such men as Bayle, 
Scaliger, the unsurpassed scholar, the great Cuvier, and Ambrose Pare, 
the father of modern surgery. It is estimated that by the stupid 
bigotry of Louis XIV., one million of them were expelled from France. 
Of one thousand Huguenot preachers, six hundred were driven into 
exile, and one hundred more sent to the galleys. Louis XIV. did 
not exterminate the Huguenots, but he destroyed more than half 
the commercial and manufacturing industries of his kingdom, thereby 
confirming his title to the appellation of "le Grand Monarque!" Wherever 
the Huguenots went they established honesty, industry, education, morality 
and piety. They helped the cause of freedom in Holland, and gave invaluable 
aid to the industrial growth of England. Many came to America, and in 
the Revolution such Huguenots as Francis Marion proved the quality of the 
race. In an article entitled "The distribution of Ability in America," but 
apparently intended to prove that it is not distributed at all. Senator 
Lodge admits that in proportion to numbers, the Huguenots have pro- 
duced more men of ability than any other element in our American 
population. 

Turning now to the Scotch Puritan movement, we find it essentially 
an uprising of the people. It is typified and represented by its great 
leader, John Knox. He was a man of the people and fitted to be a leader 
of the people. His courage knew no limits. He withstood persecution 
with unflinching fortitude, served as a galley-slave for the sake of his 
convictions, and, recovering his freedom, resumed his work with una- 
bated zeal and energy. The fascinating Queen of Scots had no charms 
for him, and he did not hesitate to denounce her sins to her face. As 
strong in his convictions as it is possible to be, he approved, in his zeal, 
things that we, in our sober judgment, must condemn. But the Scotch 
Covenant was a covenant of righteousness. 

Andrew Melville, who succeeded Knox as leader, was the real founder 
of the University system of Scotland. The authors and scholars who 
made the Scotch name illustrious in the eighteenth century were mainly 
Covenanters, and the intellectual movement which inspired them was 
of Covenanter origin. In Scotland, as in England, and in Holland, the 



PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 1 29 

cause of enlightenment and of liberty rested for a time mainly on the Puri- 
tans. The Scotch intellect owes its development and its splendid achieve- 
ments to the Covenanter impulse. 

In the course of time, a great colony of Covenanters was planted in 
the north of Ireland. These people found their new home a waste, but 
in a few years made it one of the most productive and attractive regions 
in Europe. And to this day Ulster thrives as no other part of Ireland. 
The political and religious opinions of these Scotch-Irishmen and their 
prosperity aroused persecution. They resisted strenuously, but in the 
end many sought refuge and freedom in the wilds of America, whither 
presently we shall follow them. 

But first we turn to another Puritan Exodus. It was in the year 
1621, that the first EngHsh Puritans came to America. In a few years 
forty thousand had come. They were "a picked company." They 
were of good repute, and nearly all fairly educated. About the middle 
of the second quarter of the eighteenth century the Scotch-Irish began 
their migration to America. Landing mainly at Philadelphia, and at 
Charleston, they sought homes on the frontier, especially of the South- 
west, and led the way to the conquest and civilization of all that region. 
According to our distinguished townsman. Judge Temple, there were 
not less than six hundred thousand Scotch-Irishmen in America in 1776. 
Thus the Covenanters and the Puritans made nearly one-half the white 
population of the colonies. Add to these the people of Dutch descent 
in the middle colonies, and it is reasonably certain that half the people 
were of Puritan extraction. 

The Puritans were Democrats. They believed in equality, and hated 
every form of oppression. Democracy is a corollary of the Puritan 
faith. That the Scotch Covenanters were the most pronounced and 
persistent in their democracy, I believe to be true. Buckle says of Cal- 
vinism: "It is an interesting fact that the doctrines, which in England 
have been called *Calvinistic,' have been always connected with a demo- 
cratic spirit." Fiske refers to John Calvin as the spiritual father of 
William of Orange, Coligny and Oliver Cromwell. 

I do not wish to claim too much for the Puritans. I remember Wash- 
ington and a multitude more of patriots who were not Puritans. I wish 
to show that the principles of the Puritans led them to espouse quickly, 
and to uphold steadfastly, the cause of liberty. When Independ- 
ence had been established, these two races — the English and Scotch 



130 PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 

Puritans — were dominant influences in their respective sections. At 
the present time there are fifteen miUion descendants of the New 
England Puritans in this country; and I beheve there are as many 
descendants of the Scotch-Irish. That is to say, one-half of our 
people have in their veins one strain or the other of the Puritan blood. 
Until a few years ago their enemies said that the Puritans claimed to 
have done everything in this country. This accusation was not wholly 
free from exaggeration. But it did not require a wholly censorious 
mind to discover in it elements of verity. When Douglass Campbell wrote 
his book, he claimed practically everything good for the Dutch; and not 
long ago there was a revival of race pride among the Covenanters, who 
began to speak and write for themselves and their ancestors, and now 
it is said that they claim everything good in America. I shall not assume 
the responsibility of charging either race with an excess of modesty. 
Consider for a moment what the Puritans have accomplished in 
America. The great lighthouses of education. Harvard and Yale, 
were begun by them, and in the dawn of our history. The rich libraries 
of the East have been gathered, and popular education established and 
constantly advanced. The literature of America belongs to New Eng- 
land. If we omit from our annals the names of Edwards, Channing, 
Motley, Bancroft, Prescott, Parkman, Bryant, Lowell, Longfellow, 
Whittier, Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne, how little remains! How 
ill could our political history afford to lose Samuel and John Adams, 
Otis, Webster, Choate, Sumner, Wilson, Hale, Hamlin, Pierce! And 
how many names of the history of the Northwest are Puritan! Immense 
tracts, as for instance the Western Reserve of Ohio, were peopled, almost 
exclusively, from New England. For a long time the East has con- 
trolled the policy of the country by the aid of her colonies in the 
West. Wherever the American free school system may have originated, 
it was developed and improved most in New England. The average 
of education and of intelligence has always been higher there than in any 
other part of our country. That the Covenanters, if settled in com- 
pact communities, would have equalled the New Englanders in this 
respect, I do not doubt, for stauncher friends of education never lived; 
but conditions in the South and West were such that the Scotch-Irish 
schools could only be established in widely separated communities. 
By thus training the mind, as it trained the morals of its people. New 
England became not only the most intelligent, but also the most influ- 



PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING I3I 

ential portion of our country. She produced the greatest of our writers, 
and fifty years ago had grown in intellect so that she was able and bold 
enough to make a declaration of intellectual independence. These 
were direct and indisputable evidences of the good results of Puritan 
living. The New Englanders are not entitled to credit for fomenting 
the anti-slavery movement more than were the Covenanters; but the 
abolition crusade was mainly supported by them and by their colonies in the 
West. In the face of these facts it is difficult to see how any one can deny 
the excellence of the system under which these Puritans lived. They 
were clean livers, physically and morally. They have prospered and 
they have multiplied also. The old strictness of living, carried to excess, 
it may be, caused a revolt after awhile and now there is much free think- 
ing. But I affirm that what the New England people have done at 
home and in the West is the result of the Old New England living. 

When I read the exquisite sentences of the most celebrated atheist 
of this time, and hear of his amiable and admirable personal traits, I 
see in these things convincing proofs of the excellence of the system which, 
for many generations, trained the minds and hearts of his ancestors. 
The blood of old Jonathan Edwards runs in the veins of Col. IngersoU; 
and the more brilliant the great rhetorician is, the more does he prove 
what generations of Godly living may do for the human intellect and 
talents and character. Col. IngersoU attacks the Bible, but in his own 
charming personality and fine genius, is a living irrefutable proof that 
Bible-living produces great men. He has gone far from the faith of 
his fathers, but he is as much a Puritan product as Jonathan Edwards. 
I am not arguing in behalf of any religious opinions, but only showing 
what Puritan-living can accomplish. 

If we turn to the Covenanters, we find them doing in the South, so 
far as conditions have permitted, the same things that the New Eng- 
landers did in the North. In Scotland and in Ireland they had been 
an educated people. All their preachers were school teachers. In 
America they were no less the friends of education. The memorials 
of the Scotch Presbyterian preachers are found in almost every institu- 
tion of learning in the Southwest. Princeton was their first great work; 
and as they came South and West, their land-marks were the log colleges 
that sent to Princeton a steady stream of sturdy, pious men, who returned 
to the wilderness to civilize it. These Presbyterians founded Wash- 
ington and Lee University, Washington College, the University of Ten- 



132 PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 

nessee, (or its germ, Blount College), the Southwestern Presbyterian 
University, Maryville College, Davidson College, Transylvania Uni- 
versity, Greeneville College, Tusculum College and a multitude more. 
Wherever they w^ent they carried knowledge and religion. In our im- 
mediate neighborhood they furnished such teachers as Doak, Carrick, 
Craighead, and Anderson. In the catalogue of the great men of our 
nation, are the Scotch-Irishmen, Jefferson, Jackson, Polk, Lincoln, 
Calhoun, Sam Houston, Patrick Henry, Hugh Lawson White, the 
Breckinridges, McKinley, Bryan, the Prestons, and the great inventors, 
Morse, Fulton, and McCormick. 

The Scotch-Irish led the way to the settlement of the States of Ten- 
nessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Texas, Arkansas, and much of Ohio, Indi- 
ana, and Illinois. They possessed also Western Pennsylvania, the Val- 
ley of Virginia, and Western North Carolina, and found a foot-hold in 
every Southern and Western State. Wherever they went it was as Pres- 
byterians, until, early in this century, the Baptists and Methodists had 
made heavy inroads upon them. At the present time probably the 
majority of the Scotch-Irish are not of the old communion. But whether 
they be Baptists, Methodists, or Cumberland Presbyterians, the race 
characteristics, as developed in the old Covenanters, are still strong and 
prominent, and the Methodists and the Baptists are just as much Puri- 
tan Bible-lovers as the Presbyterians. 

And so we have in America fifteen millions of the English Puritan 
stock, fifteen millions of the Covenanter stock, and I should say, at least 
two millions of the Dutch and the Huguenot stock together. These 
races have, so to speak, projected solid bodies of influence into affairs, 
and have thus afforded large and indisputable proofs that it pays, mentally, 
morally, socially and financially, to live according to the Puritan plan. 
They are ''healthy, wealthy and wise." What they are, they became 
by right living. 

You cannot deny that in ancient times the Jews surpassed all nations 
in spirituality; that the ethical inspiration of modern civilization came 
from them, and that the ethical impulse transmitted by them is most 
conspicuously and positively manifest in the Puritans, because of their 
coherence and compactness. Emerson says that "the evolution of a 
highly destined society must be moral." I do not dispute the truth of 
this saying, but I would go farther and say that the evolution of a highly 
destined society must be religious! This is, in one sense, the argument of 



PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING I33 

Benjamin Kidd in his admirable book on Social Evolution. He says: "The 
organic growth, it would appear, must be the social system, or type of 
civilization, founded on a form of religious belief." If we believe that 
mankind is to be regenerated, then the regeneration must be by religion, 
and not by mere intellectual development. If, on the other hand, we 
reject the doctrine of regeneration in favor of evolution, then I say the 
evolution must be religious. So Kidd says : *'The evolution which is slowly 
proceeding in human society is not primarily intellectual, but religious in 
character." I beheve this to be true; but I have not set for myself the large 
task of proving it. I am content to affirm, upon facts of history, that the 
highest excellence of nations, as well as of men, is religious and not intel- 
lectual; that the hope of the race lies in religious development; that the 
best practical results have been accomplished by Christian living and 
Christian doing; and that, as a rule, the most important and beneficent 
achievements of the Christians in every line of effort have been made by 
those Christians who have strictly interpreted and observed the laws of 
God as given in the Bible. If the Bible be false, then falsehood has 
done more for the good of men than all the truth in the universe, and I 
say — **A11 hail such falsehood!" I do not care to argue in behalf of the 
Bible. My proposition is that Bible-living is shown by the experience 
of mankind to be the best living for this present world. To me noth- 
ing is more wearisome and offensive than the prevalent cheap criticism 
of the Old Testament. I have for years been a diligent student of 
it, with the aid of the best modern authorities; and day by day my 
reverence for it has increased, and shame has grown upon me that I so 
long failed to realize its grandeur, its sublimity, its unspeakable variety. 
We are told that it is a cruel book; and yet I dare say that in all the 
remainder of the world's literature there are not so many actual instances 
of love and of forgiveness. It is denounced as narrow. Yet from it 
legitimately and naturally grows Christianity, whose breadth knows 
no limit. The very essence of Christianity is in the old Hebrew prophets; 
its charity, its gentleness, its all-embracing and all-enduring love. If 
you doubt it, turn to the pages of the noble prophets Hosea, Amos, Joel, 
and Jeremiah. It is false, we are told, because it relates stupendous, 
impossible miracles; and yet no man of moderate intelligence will deny 
that from it sprang originally every influence that has contributed to the 
ethical superiority of western civilization, the life and soul of that civil- 
ization. 



13+ PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 

What made the Jew, spiritually, the superior of all other men of 
ancient times ? Not the fact that he was of the Semitic family, for that 
was one of the great races whose branches populated all Southwestern 
Asia! Not his training in Egypt, for in Egypt he was a slave! Not 
Greek culture nor Roman law, for the Jewish character was developed 
before one stone of Athens or of Rome was laid ! For myself, I accept unre- 
servedly, and with absolute conviction, the explanation that the Bible 
gives. But there are many who do not believe this; and to them, I say, 
explain it otherwise if you can. At least you will not dispute the facts! 

Old and New Testament alike are all from the Jews. Christ was 
not born of a tribe of Australian savages, but just where the human rea- 
son would say He should have been born, of the race which had reached 
the highest spiritual and ethical development. I believe, also, that the 
Jews were then, as for centuries before, intellectually the strongest, 
and physically the purest race upon the earth. Bible-living, Puritan- 
living, and that alone, made it possible for the Redeemer to be born of that 
race. The Puritan, like the Jew, lived according to the Bible, and therein 
lies the secret of his strength and success. Paul and all **the glorious 
company of the Apostles" were Puritans; Jerome, immured in his cell 
at Bethlehem; Athanasius, many times exiled for the faith; Chrysostom, 
denouncing the all-powerful Empress to her face, and dying a cruel death 
in the wilderness — all these were Puritans, and their Puritanism, aided 
by the Puritanism of that "noble army of martyrs" who were thrown 
to the beasts in Roman arenas, and burned as torches in Nero's gardens, 
conquered the world. 

Let no one say that I claim everything for the Puritans. I only wish 
to show what they have done. I wish to show the good results of Bible- 
living. I do not affirm that the Puritans have done all the good in modern 
times. I do not even say that they have done the most of it. I only 
attempt to indicate some of the things that they have done; I would not 
and I could not take from other men the credit for the good things that 
they have done. 

In conclusion, permit me to say frankly, that in these general and 
somewhat disconnected statements I have intended to signify an em- 
phatic disapproval, not only of the tendency, begotten of the vast intel- 
lectual conceit of the times, to abandon Christianity and worship our- 
selves, but also of the excessively liberal and emasculated Christianity 
that is preached from many pulpits. Conscious that no process of rea- 



PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING I35 

sorting would be efficacious, I have sought to show from history, the bene- 
fits of strict Bible-living. The facts are indisputable, however we may 
differ as to the causes. 

Born of Covenanter stock, with strains of Dutch and Huguenot blood 
in my veins, I honor my earnest-living. God-fearing ancestors; but the 
time for wrangling over question of doctrines has passed. Every truly 
Christian Church is right and good. If you ask me, whom, of all men, 
I think the most unworthy, I answer: The man who, calling himself a 
Christian, speaks ill of another Christian — because of differences of doc- 
trines! 

Bigotry has done no good. It has done only harm in the world. 
But Bible-living has made modern civilization; and I appeal to history 
for proof of the assertion, that the best results have come to mankind 
from strict Bible-living! Though an adherent and devoted lover of a 
Church from which many of the Puritans and Covenanters departed, I 
should hail with joy any evidence of a tendency, in my own or in any 
other Church, to the faithful, vigorous intense Bible-living which wrought 
the characters of the strong, the invincible men and women, who in 
former centuries, have led the march of liberty and of civilization. 

As a final word, permit me to say that the popular conception of the 
domestic life and of the habits of the Puritans of New England, Old 
England, Scotland and Holland, is most erroneous. We hear much of 
the "Blue Laws," and many do not know that they are mythical. The 
notions and the laws of the Puritans were strict, but it is far from true 
that their lives were joyless. I doubt not that they enjoyed life as much 
as we do. I have in mind the conventional picture of a Puritan maiden, 
gowned in soberest stuffs, erect, precise — even formidable! The modern 
young man shudders at sight of her. The modern young woman returns 
thanks for the improvement of fashions. But the picture fails in justice 
to the Puritan maid. In the first place, a handsome woman is made 
handsomer by the Puritan garb, and it is only ladies whose charms need 
the re-enforcement of modern art, who need to fear its severe simplicity. 
And then — the maid herself! We do not see the health that suffuses 
her cheek, the brightness of her eye, nor the smile that lurks therein; 
we cannot see the purity of soul that speaks in every lineament, neither 
can we hear the soft voice that can whisper accents of love. Madam, 
no less fervently than your own! She was very human, this Puritan 
maid — although she was very good. She went to church, even when 



136 PURITAN RACES AND PURITAN LIVING 

it rained, which is remarkable. It may be she sung psalms only, but 
she sang them divinely. She did not dance all night, but the roses Hn- 
gered the longer on her cheeks. She did not say "Halloa'* to young 
men on the streets; she was not addicted to decollete toilettes; she read 
the Bible and did not read "The Quick or the Dead;" she did not per- 
mit young men to clutch her arm and thus propel her through the streets 
of Plymouth or Boston Town; she would not have enjoyed the ballet, 
but would have shared Thomas Carlyle's opinion that it was unbecom- 
ing for human beings to make manx pennies for themselves. She was 
not without faults; but chiefly her failings leaned to virtue's side. She 
grew up in health, in innocence, in purity, in godliness. As matron, 
she reared her children in virtue, and in piety. 

As I think of the Puritan Mother of Old England, of New England, 
of Holland, of France, of Scotland, there comes to me ever the vision 
of what she has done for the world. I see her, by the hand of her son, 
the mighty Cromwell, break down the prejudices of ages, strike off a 
tyrant's head and set a people free; I see William of Orange fight glori- 
ously for liberty and then die for it; I see the cruel sacrifice of Coligny; 
I see her love of learning in the great universities of Holland and of 
Scotland, in our own Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Washington and Lee, 
and in the free schools of this great Republic; I see her industry and 
thrift making the greatness of France, and her children exiled by heart- 
less and insensate bigotry, carrying their unsurpassed skill to enrich and 
to enlighten many lands; I hear her proclaim liberty in the glowing 
words of Patrick Henry, of Sam Adams, of Thomas Jefferson; I Hsten 
to the greatest senatorial debates of modern times between her sons 
Webster and Calhoun; I see her inventive genius manifest in the mar- 
velous discoveries of Morse and Edison; I admire the subtlety of her 
intellect in the metaphysics of Jonathan Edwards; I am stirred to the 
heart's depths by the noble idealism of Emerson; I hear her sing, in the 
verse of Longfellow, of Lowell, of Bryant, of Whittier; in the greatest 
war of modern times I see the military genius of her sons, Ulysses Grant 
and Stonewall Jackson; and finally I hear the whole earth resound with 
the praises of her martyred and immortal son, Abraham Lincoln! These 
are some of the jewels in the crown of Puritan womanhood! Shall the 
womanhood of these days, or of any days to come, wear a brighter dia- 
dem? 




CHANGING CUSTOMS. 

NOXVILLE is an old city, and the writer is not one of its younger 
inhabitants, he confesses, nor yet one of the oldest, he affirms. 
To one of an observant turn, the development of the city and 
the changes of manners and customs during the last forty 
years have been full of interest. 

When the war ended there were perhaps five thousand people here, 
nearly all native, and nearly all related. Most of them were of the good 
old Scotch-Irish stock, religious, moral, and of unlimited positiveness. 
The Scotch-Irish are one of the two great American races; champions 
of religious and political liberty, and rich in all the militant virtues, cour- 
age, strength, tenacity, aggressiveness. If these "rougher virtues," as 
Mr. Roosevelt calls them, pushed aside some of the finer ones, the com- 
pensation for the loss was ample, and the finer ones are coming on, as 
they are needed and have opportunity. Staunchest of partisans were 
these sturdy, strong opinioned Covenanters, with convictions, and, some- 
times, prejudices as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians. 
All in all a fine, sound stock. They gave to the community a tone which 
it has never lost, making it moral, religious, conservative; perhaps too 
conservative, but who can say so positively? They made it also critical; 
but in free communities criticism, indisputably one of the inalienable 
rights, is frequently so salutary that it may almost be classed among the 
duties. But neither conservatism nor criticism has prevented changes, 
and a few of the minor ones may be named with profit — possibly. 

Forty years ago we were satisfied with conditions. There was but 
little extreme poverty, and social ambitions and rivalries were hardly 
known. The descendants of the older settlers, connections that had 
grown rich in commerce and by the increase of land values were tacitly 
allowed social precedence, but did not assert it offensively. There were 
very few foreigners, or persons of immediate foreign descent. The 
extent and the variety of kinships was confusing, and no words were so 
much in use as those denoting collateral relationships. "Cousin" was 
the hardest worked of all words, and any well-dressed person passing 
along the street bestowed it graciously at every step upon other well- 
dressed persons. 

General conditions were, if not primitive, at least unpretentious. We 

(137) 



138 CHANGING CUSTOMS 

had gas, and policemen, and a volunteer fire department equipped with 
engines, hand-pumped and supplied from cisterns in the streets. Some 
streets were macadamized, but many were not; and in rainy seasons 
the macadam was submerged in two or three inches of black semi-liquid 
mud, while the unimproved thoroughfares produced from six to twelve 
inches of rich, yellow mire that first yielded to vehicles and pedestrians 
and then attached itself to them in liberal quantities and invincible ad- 
hesion. We had not many fine houses, and in personal expenditure 
there was a praiseworthy economy. Sunday was strictly observed, and 
even necessary luxuries, such as cigars and soda water, could not be 
bought anywhere on that day. The multi-colored and mysterious soft 
drinks, which are ravaging the modern stomach, had not then been de- 
vised. Our amusements were distinctly primitive. There was no the- 
atre; but two or three halls held small, but intensely, appreciative audi- 
ences for such aggregations as the Gilbert Sisters and the Swiss Bell 
Ringers. It can hardly be believed by the present generation of young 
people that their fathers and mothers in their youth actually enjoyed 
the ^'Swiss Bell Ringers" and such inane, moral and sermonizing plays as 
"Ten Nights in a Bar Room;" but they must recall that "Sappho" and oth- 
er high grade strongly seasoned plays of that kind, and the almost equally 
admirable and aesthetic lighter productions, such as **McFaddens Flats," 
are results of advanced intelligence, liberality and sophistication. We 
held in those days that there were, even then, plays that young people 
ought not to see, and books that they ought not to read, an opinion which 
the improved intelligence of this day has entirely discarded. Our babes 
of this day are not fed upon the insipid milk of moral tales and proper 
little plays, but upon the strong meat of the Balzac novels and the Sar- 
dou plays. We went to dances at half-past seven, while now we go at 
half-past ten. Most startling of all is the indisputable fact that many 
fathers and mothers of that day objected to round dances, and barely 
approved the now long forgotten square ones. The "german" fought 
its way to parental acceptance with infinite difficulty. 

Our manners were old and formal. Young men solicited engage- 
ments, now called "dates," with young ladies, by somewhat elaborate 
notes, containing an invariable expression of the writer s very formal 
but always genuine compliments, a method conspicuously inferior to 
the present one of off-hand salutation over the telephone, ignoring forms, 
and without any suggestion of compliment. The boys called all the 



CHANGING CUSTOMS 1 39 

girls "Miss/' and always raised their hats to them, which, it must be 
conceded, requires much more exertion than to say "hello" without more, 
as sometimes occurs now. Men did not smoke when walking with the 
other sex; but this has been changed for the better, or at least made op- 
tional, and cigarettes, or even cutty pipes now and then parade the streets 
with ladies; and, really, an unprejudiced mind will hardly deny that 
since the invention of amorphous flat hats for young men, and the intro- 
duction of cuffed trousers of indefinite expansibility, cigarettes and pipes 
are not only admissible, but by comparison ornamental. It must be 
admitted, however, that there are still a good many young men who have 
not adopted the innovations here commended. Another conspicuous 
improvement of the present time is in the fundamental matter of foot 
wear. The beau of the last generation, or the last but one, bestowed 
his foot, if his means permitted, in a pump soled boot, which had a reduc- 
tive effect, whereas his more cultured successor of this generation affects 
a thick sole of cuneiform outlines, which magnifies the foot, and, most 
important and desirable of all, makes him pigeon-toed. Upon the whole 
it would seem that the pigeon-toed shoe is the most extraordinary prod- 
uct of contemporary culture and genius. 

But let us not be intolerant or deny the young people all reasonable 
liberty. If they should do only the things which their fathers and moth- 
ers did, there would be an end of progress, and we should become another 
China. The world grows steadily, both wiser and better, and a degree 
of independence in children is not incompatible with filial duty, and mis- 
takes seem to be essential to success. We of the passing generation 
also had our little absurdities, and frequently went counter to the pro- 
prieties as our elders conceived them; and it is so with every generation. 
Forty years ago there were certain elaborately mannered elderly men 
who were called "gentlemen of the old school.'* Now these are all gone, 
and those who thus described them and admired them without imitating 
them always are, in turn, "gentlemen of the old school;" and ere long 
the boys who now wear peg-top trousers and pigeon-toed shoes will suc- 
ceed to the name and fame though, probably, in other kinds of trousers 
and shoes. All men become conservative at about forty years of age, 
and are more or less intolerant of new things, large and small; but the 
world goes on changing despite their disapproval, and the net result 
is substantial progress. The orators, poets and preachers of each gener- 
ation are prone to describe the present as degenerate. It was so of old 



140 CHANGING CUSTOMS 

and is so now. The greatest writers and speakers of all ages have la- 
mented the degeneration of the race, so that it would seem that the world 
has been going always from bad to worse, whereas exactly the opposite 
is true. Let us not conclude hastily, however, that every change is for 
the bet er, or that novelty and progress are identical. 

Many new things do not last and ought not to last. As to manners, 
if the new ones stand the test of use, they will supersede the old ones, 
and will be respected and admired as manifested by the "gentlemen of 
the old school," who are now growing up. We may assume positively 
that men will always respect and protect good women, if the women 
will submit to be protected. Good changes endure, bad ones do not. 

We are proud of the honorable history of Knoxville and attached to 
its traditions of conservatism and respectability, but we must submit 
to constant changes and in manners, fashions, and everything else, con- 
cede much to the rising generation, which in a few years, must control 
affairs in their turn. 




EAST TENNESSEE IN STATE HISTORY.* 

T the outset, I am driven to the confession that I was born in 
East Tennessee without the extenuating circumstance of 
proximity to the Watauga river. The same misfortune hav- 
ing befallen several generations of my ancestors, it is natural 
that I should be an apologist of that section. 

East Tennessee is physically isolated. The great mountain ranges that 
gird it not only shelter it from the storms that ravage the coast lands 
and the cyclones that devastate the West and the Northwest, but like- 
wise divert travel and, in a measure, impede contact with the world. 
But while there is little experimental knowledge of it, there is much sec- 
ondary and even intuitive knowledge. I have heard the phrase "Typical 
East Tennessean" from persons who had never been within five hun- 
dred miles of Tennessee. The East Tennessean who does wrong is prompt- 
ly declared "typical." As a result of the fact that political harmony has 
not prevailed between the grand divisions of the State, East Tennessee 
has become typical of all political error. Persons engaged in the inven- 
tion and manufacture of impossible dialect for literary uses select it as 
the scene of dialectic and impossible romances, and, therefore, it has 
become typical of uncouthness of manners and of speech. If these state- 
ments be exaggerations, they are at least not without elements of truth. 

I ask your attention to a brief review of East Tennessee history in 
the hope that we may find in it some relieving circumstances. 

The first decade of our history belongs absolutely to East Tennessee. 
During that time the settlements on the Watauga and the Holston arose, 
flourished, and banded themselves together as a republic, the first estab- 
lished anywhere by men of American birth. In state history and in 
national history the Watauga Association is recorded among the most 
important things of that time. It will remain forever one of the pleasing 
and signal proofs of the sturdy manhood and independence of our an- 
cestors. 

One hesitates to touch a subject so well worn as King's Mountain, 
and yet it is the right of the mountain people to have it named. There 
are today in the hills of East Tennessee thousands of the descendants 

* An address delivered during; the Tennessee Centennial at Nashville, on Knoxvillc Day 
June 17, 1X97. ( 141 > 



142 EAST TENNESSEE IN STATE HISTORY 

of the East Tennessee pioneers who followed Sevier upon that memor- 
able expedition. 

Four years later the free men of the mountains hastily, it may be, 
but bravely and with worthy purpose, established another government 
of their own, and this too has become a noted fact of American history. 
The state of Franklin proved the aptitude and the capacity of the peo- 
ple for self-government, and, if its history be lacking in heroic incident, 
it records the intelligent and patriotic self-restraint of the people of both 
factions, under the most trying conditions. The first legislature of Frank- 
lin, obedient to the sound influences that dominated the people, passed 
an act for the promotion of learning, the first of its kind west of the 
Alleghanies. 

I am not of the number who find no influence but the Scotch-Irish 
in our first history, but certainly it was dominant. We can never forget 
the services of Doak, Balch, Craighead, Gumming, Carrick and Houston, 
preachers of the truth, pioneers of education and civilization. Doak 
established in East Tennessee the first "literary institution" in the Mis- 
sissippi Valley. 

In 1794 the legislature of the Territory south of the River Ohio char- 
tered Blount College, the first purely non-sectarian college in America. 

With the establishment of the territory came to Knoxville that most 
gracious and imposing personage, William Blount, and his yet more 
gracious and admirable wife, Mary Grainger Blount. Knoxville for 
almost a quarter of a century was the capital of the State and the center 
of its political and social life. 

The most conspicuous figure was Sevier, the prince of pioneer lead- 
ers, not a perfect man nor infallible, but endowed with every quality 
to fit him for leadership in such times, and to command the devotion and 
admiration of the people. No man of his time surpassed him in public 
favor or public services, or had a larger part in shaping the institutions 
of the State and the tastes and character of the people. None save 
Andrew Jackson has so powerfully impressed himself upon the history 
of the State. 

Archibald Roane, the dignified gentleman, the scholar and jurist, a 
man of thought, endowed with no capacity for frontier leadership, but 
excelling by pure force of intellect and character, succeeded Sevier as 
governor, held with credit the highest judicial positions and now lies 
buried in the valley of East Tennessee. 



EAST TENNESSEE IN STATE HISTORY 1 43 

Joseph McMinn, the upright, the farmer governor, is to be honor- 
ably remembered. 

Conspicuous for a time above all but Sevier was William Cocke, 
the great orator, the foremost of his kind in the Mississippi Valley, the 
Ulysses of our heroic age as Sevier was its Achilles. 

A great man and a good man, whose history was the most honorable, 
was Joseph Anderson, judge of the territorial court, and for eighteen 
consecutive years a Senator of the United States. To no other of our 
great men have the people been so ungrateful. He deserves to rank 
among the foremost, and yet he has but a line in our written histories. 

John Cocke, the son of the great orator, was a gallant soldier, a dis- 
tinguished member of Congress and has a fixed place in State history 
as the founder of the Deaf and Dumb School. 

Richard G. Dunlap, the first born of Knoxville, a soldier of this repub- 
lic and of the republic of Texas, is called by Ramsay the founder of the 
public school system of Tennessee. 

Hugh Lawson White was the greatest financier Tennessee has ever 
produced, a jurist of eminence and of spotless integrity, a statesman so 
great and so pure that even the power of Andrew Jackson did not pre- 
vail against him in Tennessee. He was named **the just," and the **Amer- 
ican Cato." Called upon to choose between conviction on the one hand 
and place and power on the other, he did not hesitate to lay down his 
high office and to sacrifice his ambition. He left a name as pure and as 
admirable as any in our American annals. 

Spencer Jarnagin, as an orator, lawyer and statesman, is hardly sur- 
passed in Southern history. He was a power in the Senate of the United 
States even in the time of the great triumvirs. As a constitutional law- 
yer he has no superior in the annals of the Tennessee bar. 

William B. Reese was, with the possible exception of John Haywood, 
the most learned man that ever sat on the bench of Tennessee. He was 
the peer of any of the great judges who, in the second quarter of this cen- 
tury, won for the supreme court of Tennessee the respect and admiration 
of lawyers and courts throughout the English speaking world. 

Robert J. McKinney, another East Tennessee judge, ranked with 
Reese and Green and Turley, and thus two of the four great judges of 
that golden age were from East Tennessee. 

Thomas A. R. Nelson was by nature an orator. At the bar and on 
the hustings he had no superior in Tennessee. He spoke on the floor 



144 EAST TENNESSEE IN STATE HISTORY 

of Congress and the English press proclaimed his speech the highest prod- 
uct of American oratory. He defended Andrew Johnson in the great 
impeachment trial. When the war was ended the magnanimity of his 
character was manifested in fearless and self-sacrificing defense of South- 
ern men. 

The rival of his earlier days, Landon G. Haynes, is remembered as a 
man marvelously gifted in speech and fearless enough to defend and to 
praise East Tennessee. 

As the prejudices of the war died away, we see that among the names 
that do most honor to East Tennessee is Horace Maynard, lawyer, jurist, 
statesman, diplomat. Of massive intellect, profoundly learned, equal 
to every call made upon him in a long and militant life, he served the 
public faithfully and efficiently, and died respected and honored as a 
great man and as a good man. 

Altogether unique in Tennessee history is William G. Brownlow, 
the fighting parson, governor and senator. To one party a hero, almost 
a martyr^ to the other the embodiment of everything repellent. But 
whatever may be said or thought of him, his ability and force of char- 
acter and his tremendous influence in the affairs of Tennessee will not be 
denied. 

The life of Andrew Johnson is the highest possible tribute to the be- 
neficence of American institutions. From the most obscure beginning 
he rose to the highest position in this country — in any country. Not with- 
out grave faults, he possessed extraordinary strength and force, and for 
nearly a quarter of a century wielded an unequalled influence in Ten- 
nessee. He was congressman, governor, senator, vice-president, presi- 
dent, always independent, honest, fearless. 

The best work ever done in Tennessee history was by Ramsay, the 
East Tennessee historian. 

If we look to the people we shall find them from the beginning largely 
of Covenanter stock — the true democratic stock. Not always Presby- 
terian, for in the very earliest years of our history the great Methodist 
and Baptist denominations began and have grown until they are stronger 
now than all others. But whatever the faith of the people, the love of 
education was characteristic of all. I have shown how Doak and Carrick 
lead the way. The old colleges that were founded in the last century, 
Washington, G'reeneville, Blount, still stand. The last has grown into 
the University of Tennessee; and of the University of Tennessee, I desire 



EAST TENNESSEE IN STATE HISTORY I45 

to repeat here deliberately what I have said elsewhere, that a few years 
ago it was excelled among Southern institutions only by the University 
of Virginia, and now I say it is excelled by none. I believe that the Uni- 
versity of Tennessee in the quality of its work is superior to any other 
university or college in the Southern States. In support of this strong 
declaration I invite the examination of its curriculum, and the investiga- 
tion of its workings. It has a faculty that would do honor to any insti- 
tution, and its work is always thorough. The time is near at hand when 
the fact will be recognized that the diploma of the University of Tennes- 
see means as much as the diploma of that venerable and great institution, 
the University of Virginia. And all this has been accomplished in full 
compHance with the requirements of the agricultural college acts, which 
I dare avow in the face of any assertion to the contrary. May not we 
hope for the coming of a time, when encouragement, and not unkindness, 
will be the policy of Tennessee toward this splendid institution which 
worthily bears her own name ? 

Opportunities for higher education are now offered in East Tennes- 
see by colleges at Bristol, Greeneville, Mossy Creek, Maryville, Knox- 
ville, Harriman, Athens, Hiwassee, Rogersville, Sweetwater, Cleveland 
and Chattanooga. These are all well-supported and are contributing, 
as they ought, to the University of Tennessee, which is now in very truth 
a university. In every county in East Tennessee there is an efficient 
school system, and at nearly every place of prominence a training 
school or academy. 

The results of the activity in educational matters are apparent on 
every hand. The standard of culture is constantly advancing, and the 
tone of social life steadily improving. Much literary work is being done. 
The Centennial has for the time set the fashion and most of the work is 
in Tennessee history. There are at least seven men in the city of Knox- 
ville alone, who have recently published independent original work in 
State history, and there are others at Greeneville, Jonesboro, Chatta- 
nooga and elsewhere. An immense improvement in literary methods 
is manifest, and the work that is being done is as a rule highly creditable. 

If we consider the material development of the State, especially since 
the war, the record of East Tennessee is one of constant and healthy 
progress. The natural conditions are exceptionally favorable. A recent 
writer says of the valley of which East Tennessee forms a part that: — 

"Taken as a whole no other region in the civilized world of like extent 

10 



146 EAST TENNESSEE IN STATE HISTORY 

can compare with it in its foundation for sustaining in health, comfort 
and prosperity a dense population." The Valley of East Tennessee is 
two hundred and forty miles long and sixty miles wide. The Tennes- 
see River waters its entire length, receiving many affluents on the way. 
The valley lands are as rich as any part of the earth. The hills and the 
mountains that rise on either hand are storehouses of coal, iron, copper 
and zinc. These treasures have hardly been touched, and yet the mines 
at Coal Creek, where only a beginning has been made, send immense 
supplies of coal through all the South and Southwest The largest mar- 
ble mill in this country is at Knoxville. The soil of East Tennessee 
has a foundation of marble and in many places the high ways are actu- 
ally metalled with marble. The people of the cold Northwest are learn- 
ing that in East Tennessee supplies of marble, copper, coal, and zinc 
are unlimited; iron ores lie contiguous to lime beds; water power and 
timber abound, and the frost never paralyzes industry. In this beauti- 
ful and genial valley all conditions of health, comfort and prosperity meet 
together. The torrid airs of the South never invade it, and the moun- 
tains ward off the bitter winds that rise on the prairies. In this lovely 
valley, high above the sea level, health abides perpetually, and every 
condition favors the highest intellectual, social and industrial develop- 
ment. 

This is our view of East Tennessee, and to all we confidently and cor- 
dially extend the invitation to see for themselves. No part of the earth 
has been more favored by nature. And the people are doing their part 
with energy, wisdom and success. Erelong the childish prejudices of 
section against section that have at times existed in Tennessee will not 
be respectable in East Tennessee. What city has done more to aid this 
splendid enterprise than Knoxville? We have had at home a corps of 
earnest workers for the Centennial from the very jfirst. The city secured 
the right to levy a special tax to erect this building. In the opening days 
of the Centennial the newspapers teemed with accounts of speeches and 
addresses by Knoxville women, who have shown a beautiful and abiding 
faith and enthusiasm. They are here today adorning the occasion, and 
I believe for the first time allowing us of the other sex to occupy the plat- 
form. They excel us in every good and admirable quality, and we are 
content to yield them the first place in everything. 

In East Tennessee, recognizing the truth that this is one great State, 
and not three little States, we would gladly obliterate, if possible, all 



EAST TENNESSEE IN STATE HISTORY I47 

divisional lines. What is to be gained by perpetual criticism ? Does 
any division of the State believe that censures of another will advance 
the interests of any? The w^ar divided us; but the war ended thirty years 
ago. Shall we forever feed on recollections of it, and forever cherish the 
bitterness of it? The people of Middle Tennessee and of West Tennes- 
see are of the same origin and the same race as the people of East 
Tennessee. Difference of environment and of occupation have begotten 
differences of opinion. In the great war between the States, Middle and 
West Tennessee went with the South, while East Tennessee gave twenty- 
eight thousand men to the Federal armies. Since the war the feeling 
thus engendered has been kept alive by rash people and mutual intoler- 
ance. 

Last week patriotic utterances of the President of the United States, de- 
claring the perfect restoration of the Union, were applauded to the echo on 
these grounds. Cannot we now declare Tennessee re-united ? The fault has 
not all been on one side. Bitterness and intolerance have existed here as 
much as beyond the mountains. Indeed I do not hesitate to say that it is my 
observation that harsh and censorious speech is much more common 
west of the mountains than it is in East Tennessee. The time has come 
when all this should cease. Looking back over the history of Tennes- 
see it will be seen that in the twenty-five years beginning with the adop- 
tion of our second Constitution, the State enjoyed a prosperity and also 
a prominence in the affairs of the nation equalled by only one other State. 
This was our golden age. In it Jackson and Polk held the presidency, 
Bell and Polk were speakers of the House of Representatives, Hugh L. 
White, Grundy, Bell, Foster, Eaton, Nicholson and Andrew Jackson 
were in the Senate. Aaron V. Brown, Grundy and Cave Johnson held 
cabinet offices, and White and Nicholson declined them; John Catron 
was on the Supreme Bench of the United States; Peyton, Jones, May- 
nard, Etheridge, Harris, Hatton, Campbell, and Haskell were in Congress, 
and Green, Reese, Turley and McKinney were on the Supreme Bench. 
Population was increasing phenomenally; commercial and industrial 
interests were steadily advancing, and in agricultural and live stock pro- 
ductions the State was among the foremost. Everything prospered. 
Every interest material and moral was advancing. It was a time to 
which we may look with just pride and to find inspiration to earnest, 
unselfish and harmonious effort for the re-establishment of the pros- 
perity and the greatness of Tennessee. The achievements of that splendid 



148 EAST TENNESSEE IN STATE HISTORY 

time are the heritage of all Tennesseans. When we shall have again 
the spirit of that time we shall equal and surpass its achievements. If 
we cannot erase divisional lines from our Constitution, we can erase them 
from our hearts, and let us hope that this Centennial Exposition will be 
one of the means of accomplishing that great and beneficent result. For 
Tennessee united, all things good are possible. 



THE SONG OF THE AUTOMOBILE 

Oh, a roaring blue devil am I, 
Well tanked with gasoline; 

No other Auto in all the town 
Is in my class, I ween. 

My regular gait along Gay Street 
Is just a mile a minute; 

And when I do one half my best 
No other Auto 's in it. 

Wherever I go, in town or out, 

I do just what I like; 
But if you wish to see a show 

Just watch me hit the pike. 

At Chamberlain's I take a start 
And toot my raucous toot, 

And then with ninety horse power on 
I surely shoot the chute. 

Two seconds later, Maynard's house 
I fill with swirling dust, 

And powder all of Maynard's yard. 
To Maynard's deep disgust. 

On Templeton's colonial porch 
Sits Templeton at ease — 

I laugh and smother him in dust 
To hear him cough and sneeze. 

Then next I come to Oliver 

And throw dust in his eyes — 

A deed which done by any one 
Is cause for great surprise. 

Nor Coxe's stately greenery 

Can stay the whelming tide 

Of dirt and dust and cobble stones 
I spread in surges wide. 



(M9^ 



150 THE SONG OF THE AUTOMOBILE 

Then fair Modena's lofty halls, 
High seated on the hill, 

With yellow sweepings of the pike 
Most joyously I fill. 

On Mellen*s hill I grip the stones 

And wrest them from the ground. 

And so macadamize the fields 
For many acres round. 

And, thus, two minutes out of town. 
Or at the most, in three, 

Fve dusted all that dwell between 
The town and Cherokee. 

Ten country wagons I have met 
And caused ten run-aways; 

But country wagons are no good 
In these progressive days. 

All quadrupeds I sure despise, 
And therefore I delight 

To throw a stupid quadruped 
Into a frantic fright. 

To see a buggy in the ditch 
And hear the driver swear 

Is undiluted joy to me. 

And one that is not rare. 

Who hears my honk resounding far 
That instant clears the way. 

For Fm the owner of the pike 
In this progressive day. 

Some fogies, lingering past their time. 
Will say I leave a smell; 

But all these foolish fogies say 
I proudly scorn to tell. 

It is not true that I'm too fast, 
'Tis most absurd, you know, 

Because the fault's the other way — 
The others are too slow. 



THE SONG OF THE AUTOMOBILE I51 

And so I go my joyous way 

Along the crowded street, 
A terror to all living things 

That I may chance to meet. 

The rustics see me on the pike 

With wonder and amaze, 
And often utter shocking oaths 

While helplessly they gaze. 

The law sends out its myrmidons 

To check my roaring speed, 
But I'm a law unto myself 

And give no other heed. 

For a roaring blue devil am I 

Well tanked with gasoline, 
And the biggest thing that this old town 

Has smelled, or heard, or seen. 




LAST DAYS OF ANDREW JACKSON * 

OME to bury Caesar and to praise him. We have reached 
the closing scenes in the life of the only absolute monarch 
that ever has reigned in these United States. We have fol- 
lowed him from his cradle in Waxhaw to the v^ilderness of 
Tennessee. We have seen him a State Attorney wielding not only the 
ordinary legal weapons, but also, the now disused ones, knives, pistols 
and fence rails; a Congressman who made no speeches; twice a Senator 
and twice resigning the toga; we have seen him in the Creek War mas- 
tering mutiny, cramp colic and many other foes visible and invisible; 
we have seen him at New Orleans bruising the head of the British lion 
and making himself President; in Florida hanging aborigines and 
aliens of many nationalities, with equal and impartial disregard of law; 
in battle with the hosts of federalism and respectable conservatism; in 
the White House at last, the providence of a mighty multitude of office 
seekers; in strifes often with the well tried powers of the great bank; 
in perils of nullification, and victorious over all. At last his reign has 
ended, his successor, chosen by himself, his own undisputed political 
offspring, sits in his place, and he is about to seek in rural seclusion, in 
far off Tennessee, such rest as can come to souls as restless, strenuous 
and militant as his. He is seventy years of age, and his attenuated frame 
is racked with many ills, his nerves are shattered, and despondency at 
times overcomes even his iron will. 

He had been born to lead. He had been reared on the frontier. He 
had learned early to love strife, and had lived in an atmosphere of con- 
tention and of violence. Literally, he had fought his way through the 
world, and he knew nothing but fighting. I do not think that such men 
ever desire or seek rest. To the last moment they long for action. I 
have no doubt that Diocletian and Charles V. were hardly less unhappy 
in their boasted philosophic retirements than Napoleon was in his most 
unphilosophic seclusion at St. Helena. 

Seclusion and the pursuit of philosophy and growing cabbages may 
be acceptable to contemplative minds, but not to Napoleons and Caesars 
and Jacksons. Jackson was in no respect contemplative. He was the 
incarnation of energy and of combativeness. The excitements of poli- 

♦This paper was the last of a series read before The Irving Club by divers members thereof 
on the life, service and character of " Old Hickory." ( 153 ) 



154 LAST DAYS OF ANDREW JACKSON 

tics or of the battlefield were essential to his happiness. I do not doubt 
that he left the White House feeling as Napoleon felt when he left Fon- 
tainebleau after his abdication; and I am very sure that the least happy 
years of his life were those when he was so situated that he could not 
fight. However, he was in all respects a man far beyond the ordinary, 
and if he was not happy in retirement he was at least dignified and did 
not discredit himself. 

His circumstances when he retired were hardly opulent. He owned 
the Hermitage farm, and one hundred and fifty negroes, but the farm 
was out of repair, and he got home with exactly ninety dollars in money. 
However, the want of money did not matter very much in Tennessee 
in good old days, for we can recall the time when men could borrow for 
the asking and repay in moderate fractions at indefinite remote periods. 

His love of fine horses remained as one of the solaces of his secluded 
life, and in a general way he showed efficiency as a planter. He was 
too large hearted and large minded to care much for money, but one 
could hardly fail to thrive on such a plantation as the Hermitage. 

Not long after his return a piece of good fortune befell him. His 
favorite negro servant was charged with murder, and was in great dan- 
ger of conviction, and this gave Jackson six weeks of keen excitement 
and the opportunity to contribute fifteen hundred dollars toward the 
proper maintenance of the honorable profession of the law. 

Of course the Hermitage was the seat of an unbounded hospitality; 
everybody went there, and all were welcome. 

Another of the lost arts to which the retired President gave much 
attention was letter writing. Benevolence had not yet become an exact, 
persistent and intrusive science, although even then there was a good 
deal of violent, self determined altruism; but many persons, actuated 
by many motives, wrote letters to Jackson and very much of his time 
and strength was given to answering them. Others may have- written 
his state papers, but he wrote his own letters with his own hand and in 
the old fashioned proper way. The modern type-written business let- 
ter is altogether the most atrocious thing that the perverted abilities of 
mankind have conceived: "Yours 4th to hand. Contents noted. 
Thanks. Yours truly." 

The juggernaut car of business has crushed the propriety, almost 
the decency out of letter writing, and it is an unspeakable relief to happen 
upon an old letter with its old time elaborate courtesies and gracious 



LAST DAYS OF ANDREW JACKSON 1 55 

deferences. Upon the whole I know of nothing in which there is so 
much ill-breeding, so much utter and abominable commonness as in let- 
ter writing. 

Old Hickory was an old-fashioned letter writer, as fine in his letter 
writing manners as in his other manners. No great man would or could 
write a "contents noted," "thanks" and "yours truly" letter. It is pleas- 
ant to think of this old man, who had long filled the world's eye, sitting 
at his desk and writing with his own hand the finely courteous letters 
of an elder and better bred generation to all who wrote to him. 

And so the days went by at the Hermitage; by day the fields, the 
hands, the horses, the many visitors, the incessant letters coming and 
going; by night the old clay pipe with its long reed stem, and the chat 
beside the cheerful and reminiscent wood fire. The blazing logs kindled 
the fires of his memory and much history was rehearsed in their cheer- 
ful glow. Always the favorite theme, the thing of which he was most 
proud, was the battle of New Orleans, known then and for many years 
afterwards as New Orleens. By the Hermitage fireside he dissipated 
the cotton bale theory and declared that there was not one cotton bale 
in his line of breastworks. 

Many relics were collected at the Hermitage, among them the pistol 
which he had used in the duel with Dickinson. I know by personal 
observation that men may believe in dueling as other men believe the 
gospel, and am not surprised that Jackson could to his last day look 
from his bed of sickness upon this pistol lying on his mantel and feel 
no regret. Along with the duelist's conviction of the rectitude of the 
code, went the chivalrous and aflPectionate conviction that nothing could 
have been wrong that had been done for the sake of his dear and lamented 
wife. 

Like Napoleon, Jackson was something of a fatalist, and like Napo- 
leon he had not a little of the dramatic instinct, and he kept carefully 
the old uniform which he had worn at New Orleans, and which was 
afterwards placed in the Patent Office at Washington, where I presume 
it may be seen now. 

Of course Jackson could not be silent as to politics. In 1840 as in 1836 
he befriended his political son. Van Buren, and of course assailed Harrison. 
In that same year Mr. Clay came by invitation to Nashville, and spoke 
to an immense and enthusiastic audience, the Whig party having begun, 
as the saying was, to "feel its oats" at that time. The oration was strictly 



156 LAST DAYS OF ANDREW JACKSON 

decorous, according to the unexacting standards of the time, but of course 
much was to be said of Jackson and of Van Buren. The last was a fine 
subject for the kind of satire in which Clay excelled, and there was also 
attractive opportunity for comment upon the unfortunately large num- 
ber of defalcations that had occurred recently among office holders. 
Clay referred to Edward Livingston as a defaulter. The next day Jack- 
son published a letter in the Nashville Union in which he denounced this 
charge as false. Having been informed that Clay had said that one of 
his appointees, Samuel Swartout of New York, had been an associate 
of Aaron Burr, Jackson retorted in this letter that Clay himself had been 
friendly with Burr, and had secured the office of Secretary of State by 
a bargain. He concluded by characterizing Clay as a demagogue, and 
as being contemptible and as a slanderer of the living and of the dead. 
All of which shows that a retired President can still find ways of enjoying 
himself. Clay in return declared the letter "impotent, malevolent, 
derogatory," etc. In this year Jackson's friend and biographer, John H. 
Eaton, supported Harrison, because the democrats favored the hard 
money, single standard, and Eaton, as Jackson's minister to Spain, hav- 
ing seen the operation of a single standard system in that country, op- 
posed its adoption here, which shows that if history never repeats itself 
it sometimes reverses itself. 

The financial troubles of Van Buren's administration caused Jackson 
no compunctions. He readily saw that the whole trouble had been 
caused by the abominable Bank, by paper money and by speculation. 

In 1842 he became financially involved on account of his adopted 
son and was compelled to borrow ;Sio,ooo from his friend Francis P. 
Blair, editor of the Washington Globe. 

Blair and Rives wished to lend him the money in such a way that 
it would really be a gift, but he would accept it only on business terms. 
About the same time Congress voted to refund the fine of one thousand 
dollars that he had paid at New Orleans. This, with interest, amounted 
to twenty-seven hundred dollars, and the bill to repay it passed the Sen- 
ate by a strict party vote. In the house there seems to have been a little 
less party bigotry. Mr. C. J. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, was a hearty 
supporter of the bill, and it is evident that admiration of Jackson is one 
of the permanent characteristics of his distinguished family. 

And now the shadows began to settle more darkly about Jackson. 
He could not fail to see the approach of the one enemy to whom all men 
must yield. 



LAST DAYS OF ANDREW JACKSON 157 

It has been my observation of history that generally great men are 
essentially religious. I do not mean necessarily orthodox. Napoleon 
rebuked unbelief and died in the communion of the Catholic Church. 
Our own Washington and Webster are examples of strong religious 
belief. Special education warps the mind, but great minds have been 
usually devout minds. 

The unmistakable approach of death had its effect upon Jackson. 
I am sure, however, that he told the truth when, in 1838 he wrote: **I 
would long since have made this solemn public dedication to Almighty 
God, but knowing the wretchedness of this world and how prone men 
are to evil, that the scoffer of religion would have cried out hypocrisy, 
he has joined the Church for political effect, I thought it best to post- 
pone this public act until my retirement to the shades of private life, 
when no false imputation could be made that might be injurious to relig- 
ion. 

As he was not a liar nor a hypocrite these statements can hardly be 
denied and certainly they are highly honorable. It was two or three 
years, however, after he retired that he entered the Church. The per- 
son who directly influenced him in this matter was Dr. Edgar, a Pres- 
byterian minister of Nashville. Parton gives an extended and not 
wholly unsympathetic, and it may be, untrue account of the matter. I 
do not either like or trust Mr. Parton, who knew everything and believed 
in nothing but himself. 

It would seem that there was a protracted meeting in the church on 
the Hermitage farm. On the last day of the meeting Dr. Edgar preached 
a sermon which powerfully affected Jackson, who after the meeting 
requested the minister to go home with him. He was unable to accept 
the invitation, and so Jackson passed most of the night alone or in com- 
pany with his adopted daughter in prayer, or in reading upon religious 
subjects. When morning came his purpose was settled and his mind 
at ease. Soon after sunrise Dr. Edgar arrived at the Hermitage and 
after the good old manner examined Jackson as to his state of mind 
and belief. Everything was satisfactory until the minister asked, "Gen- 
eral, can you forgive all your enemies.?" This question was a hard one 
to Jackson, as it is to all men, and much harder than to most men. 
"My political enemies, said he, I can freely forgive, but as for those who 
abused me when I was serving my country in the field, and those who 
attacked me for serving my country — Doctor, that is a difl?"erent case." 



158 LAST DAYS OF ANDREW JACKSON 

Being assured by the clergyman that this was not true, and that a Chris- 
tian must forgive all his enemies, Jackson finally declared that he could 
do even that. And so one morning in the little church of the Hermitage 
Andrew Jackson, having passed the age of seventy years, was admitted 
into the communion of the Presbyterian Church. In order to make 
the required declaration, he stood leaning heavily upon his cane, while 
the tears rolled down his cheeks. The congregation, which the building 
could not accommodate, was overcome with emotion, as was the minister. 

From this time forward he gave most of his leisure time to the study 
of the Bible. Parton says that he read prayers in the presence of his 
family and servants nightly. He was nominated for the office of Elder 
in the church, but declined because he had so lately become a member. 

The last px)litical matter to engage his attention was the annexation 
of Texas. In 1843, Gilmer, of Virginia, published in a Baltimore news- 
paper an argument for the annexation of Texas. This letter was sent to 
Jackson, with a request for his opinion, by Aaron V. Brown, of Tennessee. 
This is alleged to have been part of an intrigue against Van Buren. 
The plan being to get Jackson's support of annexation, and keeping this 
secret to entice Van Buren into a contrary declaration, after which Jack- 
son's letter was to be made public to Van Buren's undoing. 

Jackson wrote, fully endorsing the plan of annexation, forgetting 
or not caring that twenty-four years earher he had declared that Texas 
was not necessary to the United States. His letter was dated February 12, 

1843. For eleven months it was not made public. In the meantime 
Van Buren, the wily, had declared himself in favor of annexation if it 
could be accomplished peaceably, but as opposed to it as an immedi- 
ate measure, and without regard to the rights of Mexico. In March, 

1844, the letter appeared with the date changed from 1843 to 1844. 
Jackson being still devoted to his political child, wrote a second let- 
ter, re-affirming the position taken in the first, but eulogizing Van Buren 
in the highest terms. Nevertheless Van Buren did not get the coveted 
nomination, which went to James K. Polk, of Tennessee. 

Jackson supported Polk and Dallas with characteristic vigor, reviv- 
ing the old charges of bargain and intrigue against Clay. Parton says 
that the ''controlling cause of Henry Clay's unexpected defeat in 1844 
was the opposition of Andrew Jackson." I do not believe this, while 
I do not doubt that there is a large element of truth in the assertion. 
It is reasonably certain that the expansion issue was as important then 



LAST DAYS OF ANDREW JACKSON 1 59 

as in 1900, and was more a favorite. In honor of Polk's election, 
Jackson entertained two hundred persons at an open air dinner at 
the Hermitage. 

Early in 1845 it became evident that the end was at hand. For 
thirty years Jackson had never been well. The marvelous natural 
vigor of his constitution had been impaired in every conceivable man- 
ner. From his bloody encounter with the Bentons, he had gone, with 
unhealed wounds, to endure the hardships and privations of the Creek 
War, having before that been shot by Dickinson. From the time of the 
Dickinson duel he had frequent hemorrhages. After 18 15 he was a 
confirmed dyspeptic. To stop these hemorrhages he resorted to bleed- 
ing, and for various purposes used strong medicines profusely. He 
was excessively addicted to coffee, and both smoked and chewed tobacco. 
He was now afflicted with an incessant cough; one lung was gone and 
the other was impaired, and in addition to all this he was tormented 
and disfigured with dropsy. 

In the midst of the sufferings caused by all these ills he displayed 
an invincible fortitude and strangely enough a gentle and unfailing pa- 
tience. Agony could wring no complaint from him. The most irascible 
of men had become the most patient. He had been always honest 
and brave. I believe that he was sincere in saying that he had been 
religiously disposed for a long time. It is certain that he had that relig- 
iousness which belongs to high and sincere and strong minds. I do 
not doubt that he was afraid of death. All men are afraid of it except 
very young agnostic philosophers. But whatever may have been the 
cause Jackson was in his last days a model of patience, having been 
always a model of fortitude. 

On the 24th of May, 1845, he took the communion in presence of his 
family, and said that he was ready to die. He died June 8, 1845, at six 
o'clock in the afternoon. His last words were: **Be good children and 
we will all meet in heaven." He was buried at the Hermitage beside 
his wife, of whom he said not long before his death: "Heaven will be 
no heaven if I do not meet my wife there." I have not space to tell of 
the public meetings that were held in his honor, of the many eulogies 
that were pronounced and of the dissents that proved how long revenge 
can live in some minds. In the main it was true that, instantly, upon 
his death the country realized that it had lost one of its greatest and best 
men; but it may be remarked that after theological controversy, political 



l6o LAST DAYS OF ANDREW JACKSON 

party spirit can beget deeper and more enduring and more unreasoning 
animosity than any other cause can produce. 

In conclusion I say of Jackson that few men have had more faults and 
fewer still, more virtues. He was profane, he was fond of cock fighting 
and of horse racing; he was violent, a duelist and a brawler, and in 
some of his quarrels was grossly in the wrong; he was obstinate to an in- 
tolerable degree, and when in anger, was prone to that worst form of little- 
ness, vindictiveness and revenge; he was wholly intolerant of opposition, 
and while an ardent and sincere lover of liberty, had very little of that 
regard for the opinions of others, which is essential to good citizenship 
in a free country. 

On the other hand he was honest, and was sincere in his friendship 
and frank in speech; he was brave to rashness; he was as sincere a patriot 
as ever lived, and there was no sacrifice which he would not have made 
for his country, indeed there was hardly any that he did not make; he 
had moral courage, or mental courage, I think more than the cheap ani- 
mal courage which the vulgar insist upon classing as a cardinal virtue. 
He was a chaste man in word and in conduct, of a fine and dignified 
courtesy, fond of children, and had when free from anger a kind and 
tender heart. 

His services to the country were various and great. In crushing the 
Creek Indians he deprived England of allies who might otherwise have 
demanded the attention of the army which he carried to New Orleans. 
At New Orleans he redeemed the honor of American arms and made 
priceless contribution to the glory of his country. As President he was 
faithful, fearless and honest. 

The enemy of secession, who does not acknowledge the indebtedness 
of his party and cause to Jackson, is either blinded by prejudice, or is ig- 
norant or insincere. In 1833 Jackson was ready to do more than Buchanan 
did in i86o,and as much as Lincoln did in 1861. Not all Webster's speeches, 
not all other influences together did so much to develop and confirm senti- 
ment against the State's rights doctrines as Jackson's course toward nulli- 
fication; this was the little secession that preceded the great one, and whose 
suppression taught how the greater might in turn be suppressed. 

At all times, and under all circumstances Jackson loved his country 
and served it faithfully, honestly and bravely. With his patriotism he 
mingled solicitude. He had been born the subject of a King. He knew 
the history of the past, and how literally true it is that "eternal 



LAST DAYS OF ANDREW JACKSON l6l 

vigilance is the price of liberty." He had none of that easy confi- 
dence that nothing could hurt us, which is so characteristic of our 
own time. In his day there was none of that overwhelming conceit 
of ourselves, which we conplacently describe as faith in the destiny of 
the Republic. One may conjecture what he would think and say if 
he could revisit his country and see the colossal proportions of our na- 
tional vanity. It is safe to say that it has had no parallel in the history 
of vanities. The strut of our Americanism is superlative. France 
never has approached our present condition of national vanity. The 
triumph awarded Scipio when he returned with his victorious legions 
from the conquest of his country's most formidable enemy and the over- 
throw of the greatest soldier of antiquity had not half the splendor and 
glorifications of Dewey's triumph for sinking the worst equipped fleet that 
ever fought a pitched battle. 

One of the things that impress us in reading of the earlier days of 
the Republic is the solicitude and apprehension for the fate of our coun- 
try, constantly expressed. This is notably true of Jackson. He knew, 
and many others have been wise enough to know, that liberty must be 
guarded jealously and that neither culture, nor wealth, nor conceit 
will preserve it. 

He was essentially American and democratic. Until he became 
President the government had been in the hands of an element that repre- 
sented the culture and the opinions of colonial times. It was respectable, 
educated and as a rule ultra-conservative. This was not altogether 
true of Jefferson, but generally speaking the statement is correct. About 
the time that Jackson was first a candidate for the presidency, this older 
generation was losing its hold upon the country. Power was passing 
to the new and growing, the crude, American and democratic West. 
John Quincy Adams was the last representative of the old regime. This 
excellent and cultured gentleman, collegian, precisian, puritan, prude, 
was succeeded by a Tennessee backwoodsman who had no ancestry, 
no pride of class, no conservatism, almost no culture, who swore roundly 
and often, smoked a cob pipe, chewed tobacco and was in fact the thor- 
ough-going democrat, the genuine commoner that Mr. Jefferson hon- 
estly tried to be. Jackson was the first President who was wholly Ameri- 
can in ideas. He carried the West to Washington. He made Tennes- 
see for twenty years of equal political importance with New York, Penn- 
sylvania or Massachusetts. He inspired, guided, aided many Tennes- 
11 



1 62 LAST DAYS OF ANDREW JACKSON 

scans to high places and to honors, sending them abroad as representa- 
tives of the RepubHc, placing them upon the Supreme Bench and in 
the Cabinet. His lieutenants in Tennessee were among the most skill- 
ful politicians and the most accomplished statesmen of the time. Among 
them were Lewis, Overton, Catron, Aaron V. Brown, John H. Eaton, 
Hugh L. White until 1835, and James K. Polk. In all probability Tennes- 
see will never again enjoy the political influence and importance that 
she possessed in the golden days of General Jackson. 

What was the secret of Jackson's success? One will say it was will- 
power, another that it was a chance prominence at a time when the influ- 
ences for which he stood were ascendant, still another that it was the 
victory of New Orleans, and so on. I can only say that he was a great 
man. I cannot define the quality of greatness, but we know that it ex- 
ists, that there are great men. We may dispute Jackson's greatness, 
and logically we might even disprove it, but the fact remains. Never 
in any company of men was he second. He was always first. He had 
not the intellect of Calhoun or Webster, nor the eloquence of Clay or 
the learning of Adams. Even in courage and power of will there were 
other public men who were his equals, but for at least two decades he 
was the foremost man in America. If we cannot say in what greatness 
consists, we know that there is such a thing, and that Jackson was one 
of the men to whom Providence has seen fit to grant it in high degree. 




UNCHASTITY IN FICTION.* 

OREIGNERS protest that English fiction is too sanguinary; 
that it is continually red with blood of men or beasts. The 
objection is strenuously urged by French critics. 

In France the passion of love furnishes the novelist his 
material. Englishmen as well as Frenchmen love, and write of love. 
In the English love story, the hero wins the heroine virtuously, by deeds 
which prove his worth and commend him alike to his mistress and to 
the reader. The French love story is more than likely to be one of in- 
trigue and amour. The illegitimate gratification of the passion plays a 
subordinate, indeed an insignificant, part in the imaginative writing of 
the Anglo-Saxon. That race has constantly exalted personal purity, 
and has rigidly guarded the institution of marriage. Many sins may 
be laid at the doors of the English nobility of our own and of other times; 
but it remains true that the people, the intelligent masses, who after all 
are the substance of the nation and the controlling power in it, have 
always maintained the highest standard of morals, and have, both in 
action and in thought, accomplished the best results of modern times. 
This applies to the Anglo-Saxon in all countries, England, America, 
Australia. His personal purity is manifest in his literature no less than 
in his life. 

Nowhere has illicit love been so freely used as a seasoning for fiction 
as in France. I have elsewhere asserted that the "erotic'' fiction of 
America is, in great part, the direct product of French romance, a state- 
ment which cannot be successfully denied. But while the wicked French 
novel has furnished the model for the construction of its American coun- 
terfeit, the phenomenon of the existence and popularity of a great and 
increasing number of erotic, that is to say, immoral and indecent tales, 
in a country which was settled mainly by Anglo-Saxons, and in which 
they are still dominant, must be further explained; and the explanation 
lies largely in the fact that immigration, especially in the great cities, has 
produced a hybrid population and lower standards of taste and morals. 
Thus the toleration of these books does not indicate so much a revolution 
of sentiment among the Anglo-Saxon people of America as a change in 
the constitution of our population in certain localities. 

But whatever the explanation may be, we have the books. The cheap 

♦Published in Fetter's Southern Magazine, August, 1893. ( 163) 



164 UNCHASTITY IN FICTION 

market is flooded with them, and their authors' pockets are presumably dis- 
tended with profits. It has been the popular belief that these books have 
been written solely because they find a ready market. Unquestionably they 
supply a demand. The writers have been considered as defying the better 
public opinion and pandering to depraved appetites, for the sole purpose 
of personal profit. Of nearly all, if not of all, this judgment is probably 
correct. But they have been writing and seUing at a rate which has 
filled with envy and despair the soul of many a better but impecunious 
writer of the old conservative fashion. I have neither space nor incli- 
nation to discuss the relative merits of Anglo-Saxon and Latin civiliza- 
tions. I content myself with repeating that the opinions in regard to 
illicit love, and the place it should be allowed in literature, and the method 
of its treatment, of which the novelists of adultery complain, are so many 
manifestations of the character of the Anglo-Saxon race. The charac- 
teristic thus manifested cannot, in my judgment, be eradicated, nor be 
disregarded with impunity, and certainly this is devoutly to be wished. 
The romancers of illicit love may have the support of the numerically 
strong, but morally and intellectually inferior elements of our popula- 
tion, composed mainly of foreigners, but never of the better and con- 
trolling class of Anglo-Saxon Americans, nor of the strong and morally 
sound Celtic element. The writers who are endeavoring to establish 
as the staples of American fiction these various examples of forbidden 
love defend themselves, when assailed, by crying "candor!" "art!" 
They advise us of the fact that this is an "era of shams" and that they 
are the Anti-shams. We are told that the French surpass us in art, 
and being a plain, practical people, we submit to the dictum, and tolerate 
the indecency of Belot and De Maupassant because we do not wish to 
appear ignorant of art. 

Let us inquire which is superior — French or English fiction — leaving 
out considerations of morality for the present, and looking only to liter- 
ary results. Admitting that the question cannot be answered to the 
satisfaction of all tastes and opinions, I venture the assertion that no 
one but a Frenchman or a Franco-American fictionist would claim that 
the advantage rests with the French. 

In England and in America we confidently assert the superiority of 
English fiction. If to borrow a phrase from trade, we take the 
total output of EngHsh fiction, where shall we find it surpassed.? If 
we descend to particular authors and books, have not the English 



UNCHASTITY IN FICTION 1 65 

been as successful and as influential as the French? Was Balzac greater 
than Dickens or Thackeray, Dumas than Scott, George Sand than George 
Eliot? Is there a single novel in the French language that has greater 
literary merit than the first twenty of Scott's, or a half dozen of Thack- 
eray's or George Eliot's or Bulwer's, or than the^'Scarlet Letter" and 
"The Marble Faun?" 

If French fiction is not superior, it is certainly a discreditable fact, 
provided we admit that the "love that goes astray" affords the best op- 
portunities; for there is no disputing that it has made use of this love 
with unlimited freedom, while English fiction has been persistently 
restricted. The radical difference between the French and the English 
novel in this respect is explicitly recognized and is dwelt upon by Taine. 

Does not the logic of results demonstrate that the erotic writers over- 
rate the importance of illicit love in the "economy" of the novel? The 
English and the French schools accurately and fully represent two oppos- 
ing systems. Has not the English produced better results? Is there a 
man or woman outside of France who would say that the world could 
better spare the English than the French novel? Can French literature 
furnish a novel as artistically constructed, against which the critics of 
any nationality can find so little to say, as against Esmond? Has not 
Mrs. Stowe surpassed even Victor Hugo in writing a novel of purpose? 
Will it be denied that there are more great novels, whether considered 
merely as works of literary art or with reference to utility, in the English 
than in any other language? 

If the French surpass us in art, then art must be synonymous with 
immorality. If we consider novels as affecting society practically, to 
what conclusion shall we come as to the comparative merits of French 
and English fiction? 

Statistics show that family life is much more irregular in France than 
in England. It is an undisputed fact that personal purity in both sexes 
is less esteemed and less practiced in France than in England. The 
percentage of illegitimate births in France steadily averages from seven 
to eight. In England it ranges from four to five. In England the aver- 
age of education is higher than in France. The English are the most 
enlightened, the most progressive, the most influential and most respected 
people of Europe. England has the best and the best conducted govern- 
ment in Europe. In so far, then, as opinions, manners and institutions 
are aftected by imaginative literature, the decision based upon tiie best 
available evidence must be against the French. 



l66 UNCHASTITY IN FICTION 

But it is the people who make the novel. The Anglo-Saxon civiliza- 
tion is the best and the purest. The English novel represents it truly 
as the French novel represents truly a high, but nevertheless com- 
paratively inferior, and in some respects vicious, civility. The English 
people being no less intelligent than the French, and being in advance 
of them both in morals and in education, it is a logical result as well as 
a fact that their intellectual production is superior. 

It is not a fact, as has been asserted, that the English and the Amer- 
ican public have denied to novelists the right to treat the subject of illicit 
love. The requirement has simply been that they should handle it with- 
out indecency in language or thought, without extenuation or approval, 
and without effort to make vice attractive. They have, in effect, wisely 
extended to fiction the rules which govern them in actual life. Perhaps 
it is more accurate to say that the habits and modes of thought of the 
English race have made any other miethod of treatment impossible. 
And to this requirement all reputable, certainly all great, English novel- 
ists have strictly conformed. 

Taine, a Frenchman, holding the French view of the subject, states 
the case almost fairly: 'Tf you venture on a seduction, as in 'Copper- 
field,' you will not relate the progress, ardor, intoxication of the amour; 
you will only depict its m.iseries, despair and remorse." 

As we wish to be a chaste and virtuous people, we do not approve of 
the intoxication of amours; we do not discuss amours in our families; 
and we do not believe that M. Zola nor M. Belot nor any American imi- 
tator should be permitted to enlarge on the ardors of adulterous associa- 
tion, in the intimate intercourses between author and reader. As these 
are the subjects which certain American writers believe to afford their 
talents and necessities the best opportunities, they naturally dissent from 
this opinion, but they will with difficulty find any but selfish reasons to 
support their contention. 

There is no warrant in logic for referring, as American eroticists fre- 
quently refer, to Dickens or Scott for precedents to justify the novel of 
adultery. Would the "erotic" novelist, who recently presented to the public 
in a magazine article the most nauseous passages from one of his morally 
abominable and artistically absurd books for the ostensible purpose of 
demonstrating their high morality, and who modestly mentioned him- 
self in connection with Dickens and Scott have us believe that, if he had 
written another "Copperfield" or "Heart of Midlothian," he would ever 



UNCHASTITY IN FICTION 167 

have been called upon to defend it in the press, much less in the criminal 
court ? When did the Government forbid the passage of the "Scarlet Letter" 
through the mails? Does any advocate of the new method believe that 
if he had written the "Scarlet Letter" in this "era of shams" he would 
have incurred any odium or inconvenience? Was criminal process ever 
served on Dickens or Hawthorne on account of indecent publications? 

The new "school" has been condemned because it has declined to 
follow the excellent and illustrious example of these books, and has 
bowed down to the false gods of French fiction. Whoever shall write 
another "Copperfield" or "Heart of Midlothian" or "Scarlet Letter" 
will have no cause to complain of the English and the American public. 
It is asserted that "the love that goes astray" is the basis of all the greatest nov- 
els, such as "Copperfield" and "Les Miserables." This is wholly absurd and 
necessarily insincere. The new erotic school will learn that the sentiment of 
the Anglo-Saxon race will not yield to their theories. That race holds it- 
self aloof from uncleanness in literature as well as in life. It is not blind to 
the existence of immorality and crime. It recognizes the prevalence of 
unchastity, but it does not frequent dance halls, variety theaters and 
worse haunts of vice, nor introduce wives, sons and daughters to such 
places, in order to inculcate chastity. Neither does it approve of 
familiarizing them with the life and method of these places through 
the instrumentality of books. It has constantly, strenuously, endeavored 
to put down these things in society and to exclude gross and unnecessary 
representation of them from literature. Whatever may be said against 
this practice and opinion is fully answered by the facts of history. The 
Anglo-Saxon race, by its physical, intellectual and moral superiority and 
ascendancy, answers every objection. 

There is no department of literature in which the English-speaking 
race has not excelled every other people of modern times. The French 
novelists have been as industrious and as prolific as the English. The 
sprightly genius of the French nation seems particularly adapted to the 
lighter forms of imaginative writing. We need go no further than our 
American news stands to be convinced of the tremendous activity of the 
French imagination. There is, however, a most tiresome sameness of 
theme. George Saintsbury refers to his study of French fiction as "a 
long course of reading about plain and fancy adultery." The people 
write the books. The character of the people is in the books. 

When we approve and adopt contemporary Parisian morals, we shall 



l68 UNCHASTITY IN FICTION 

write and read French novels. The fact that some classes of our popu- 
lation are in a measure tolerant of Zola and Belot and their kind proves 
that we are becoming tainted with the immorality of which these writers 
are products and exemplars. So long and so much as we remain Anglo- 
Saxon Americans, we shall abhor the French method — and the American 
imitation of it. And no one will deny that the American erotic novel is 
infinitely more repulsive than its Gallic original. The American champions 
of adultery in fiction have the proverbial enthusiasm of beginners; but 
even if it were admitted that their present popularity is likely to endure, 
it could not be denied that long and careful training is necessary to 
enable them even to approach the facility and the comparative decency 
of the French writers in handling the subject. 

The French writers and critics and their American imitators make 
a fetich of art, and apparently construe art to consist solely in the depic- 
tion of the sexual passion. It cannot be denied that the passion of love 
affords the writer most seductive opportunities for producing effects. 
But if there be anything of which we do not need to be informed it is 
this. Our passions are like caged wild beasts constantly straining at the 
bars. The contemplation of the subject inflames the imagination. Na- 
ture has ordained that the race be perpetuated, and as Emerson says, has 
accomplished the purpose by a tremendous overloading of passion. 

The French novelists, Balzac, Zola, Belot, may have no purpose to 
excite passion or to make vice attractive. But is it not true that in almost 
every instance that result follows? The novelist defends himself by 
pleading art. He declares that art is neither moral nor immoral, but 
unmoral. This is all well enough in the abstract, but art is addressed 
to mankind, which is moral or immoral, which is pregnant with fierce 
passion. It is not enough to say that men and women ought not to be 
affected except aesthetically by works of literary art. The fact remains 
that they are powerfully affected. The artistic and aesthetic elect are full 
of contempt for the low and vulgar who cannot look without blushing or 
evil thought upon the splendid achievements of art in nude paintings and 
sculptures. It is indisputable, however, that the very paintings and 
sculptures which are the most prized treasures and ornaments of the 
picture galleries and museums, are copied and placed in bar-rooms and 
dance-halls to attract and gratify the low minds and imaginations of their 
frequenters. 

The novel goes everywhere. Its readers are of all classes, but a great 



UNCHASTITY IN FICTION 1 69 

majority of them are of the very classes that are most likely to be influ- 
enced by the evil that is found in books. Boys and girls, and persons 
of inferior education and taste, make this majority. To address to them 
such novels as are flooding the cheap press and illuminating every news 
stand with their gaudy covers is a palpable outrage against propriety 
and decency, and a menace to the morality and well-being of the country. 
Between writer and reader intercourse is silent, long and intimate. 
Outside the elect circle of artistic writers and critics is the remainder of 
mankind, a considerable majority, which is incapable of reaching the 
point of purely artistic, passionless contemplation. The considerations 
here suggested may be treated lightly by the writers and critics, but the 
statements are true, and the condition is one which we may not with 
impunity disregard. 

It is said, upon the other hand, that the people can be educated out of 
this low, vulgar, sensual habit of mind. "Let us elevate men,'* say the 
writers, "by accustoming them to the contemplation of the subject. By 
this method we propose to minimize concupiscence." This is a result 
greatly to be desired, but it is worth while to inquire whether or not there 
is any evidence upon which we may reach a judgment as to the practica- 
bility of this method of reform. The ancient Babylonians, according to 
Herodotus, adopted the most efficient method of familiarizing them- 
selves with this subject, but the result was not moral elevation. Trav- 
elers in Italy may recall the carefully guarded museum in Naples, where- 
in are preserved abundant proofs of the fact that the people of Pompeii 
and Herculaneum had thoroughly accustomed themselves to the con- 
sideration of the subjects, and that, too, through the instrumentality of 
art. And yet it will hardly be claimed that, measured even by stand- 
ards of their own time, the people of those unfortunate cities were con- 
spicuous for superior morality or chastity, or that they in any good respect 
surpassed their compatriots or any of their contemporaries. 

Of all the people of ancient times, the Jews were the most chaste. 
Contrast the "Whore of Babylon" with the people of judea under the 
Mosaic law. The Jews were not a perfect people. They committed 
many crimes, were guilty of manifold follies, but they were in the matter 
under consideration comparatively, at least, a pure people. And what- 
ever opinion may be held as to the divine origin of their Scripture, no one 
will deny that, scientifically or philosophically considered, the laws which 
regulated their conduct were the wisest and most beneficent of which 



170 UNCHASTITY IN FICTION 

ancient history contains any account. Chastity and a high and persist- 
ent regard for the marriage relation have been characteristic of the Jews 
throughout their history; and the result is manifest in a racial vitality 
and persistence v^hich has no parallel. The Babylonians required their 
women to prostitute themselves, the Greeks and Phoenicians had their 
phallic worship and their temples of Venus with their worship of that 
amorous deity, as did the Romans. The Jews had none of these. 

Privacy in all sexual matters, chastity, the rigorous repression of 
sexual passion were prescribed under strong penalties by the Mosaic 
law. "The Songs of Solomon" and other parts of the Old Testam.ent 
may be cited to the contrary, but a comparison of Hebrew literature and 
life with the literature .and life of any other people of ancient times will 
demonstrate their immeasurable superiority. 

In modern tim.es the French people have, above all others, pursued 
the familiarizing policy. If we go no further back than to Balzac, it is 
still true that there has been abundant time for testing the merits of the 
method Balzac, the high priest of realism in fiction, most powerfully 
of all men prom.ulgated the dogma of the infallibility of art. He decreed 
the divorce of literature from morality, and fixed the character of the 
modern French novel. Born in a transitional and unsettled period, 
reared in a vicious society, he assumed the task of writing its history. 
His "Human Comedy" he and his followers declare to be a tran- 
script of French life in his time. After him we name Flaubert, and then 
a multitude of contemporary historians of seduction and adultery, whose 
highly illuminated volumes now burden our American news stands and 
"news butchers." 

France has had a deluge of sexual realism. Has it purged the people 
of uncleanness } The newspapers publish that ten per cent of the family 
life of Paris is irregular. Marriage has becom.e so unpopular in France 
that heavy penalties are contemplated for the purpose of increasing pop- 
ulation and lessening immorality and illegitimacy. The corruption of 
Paris, the heart of France, is a proverb in the civilized world. No 
doubt the French novel of passion is artistic, and may be entitled 
to high praise on that account; but it is popular in France not alone 
because it is artistic, but because of the subject which it so artistically 
treats. Sexual passion is not the only subject that is susceptible of artis- 
tic treatment. - The French novel has not purified society, but has re- 
sponded to its vicious requirements. The effect of artistic portrayals of 



UNCHASTITY IN FICTION I7I 

seduction, passion and fornication is not to purify, but wholly the con- 
trary. The secret of its prevalence and popularity is the demand of the 
French people, not for art, but for the subject; and so far as history and 
statistics are proof, it is indisputable that the practical results of the 
method are vicious. And I say again that there is no reason for declaring 
that the unlimited "candor" permitted the French novelists has pro- 
duced any appreciable literary advancement. 

It seems appropriate to say that the novelists are contending for a 
theory while the people recognize a condition. There must be a limit 
somewhere beyond which art cannot go. There are subjects with which 
it cannot deal. There are deeds so revolting, subjects so repulsive, that 
even art cannot handle them. The natural offices of the human body 
are necessary, but they are hardly fit subjects for the painter or sculptor 
or novelist. The world is full of indecencies which no artist would dare 
portray. 

*'Candor" has limits, and in art and literature it m.ay be injurious and 
degrading. Many men, if they lived candid lives, would keep seraglios; 
would rob, steal, disregard all rules of ethics and morality. I am unable 
to see why society should not restrain imaginary men and women within 
the same bounds that it sets to real men and women. If we wish to 
demonstrate the evil effects of vice and sin, do not men and women of 
flesh and blood afford stronger lessons than men and women of fancy.? 
If our sons and daughters must study crime let us take them ourselves to 
beer halls and bagnios, rather than allow them to visit these places in the 
company of Messrs. Zola, Belot, and their imitators. If novels be written 
as Charles Reade, and sometimes Dickens, wrote them, with a set pur- 
pose to right some wrong, fiction writing becomes a useful art and, there- 
fore, justly liable to criticism based upon practical considerations. And 
there are very few of the sexual school who do not claim to be writers of 
practical purpose. Their avowed aim is to benefit mankind, to reform 
society. The plea will not avail them. 

It would be a bootless task to dispute as to the functions and scope of 
art. It is very well for Goethe and his repeaters to say that we must 
consider and estimate art as art; that we must forget our passions, dis- 
embody ourselves. To do this is impossible. To expect it, or even to 
ask it, of the great mass of men and women is absurd. The realist in 
fiction writes realistic books, but he has or pretends to have the most 
unreal estimate of men and women. He totally disregards realism in 



172 UNCHASTITY IN FICTION 

effect. He writes of everything low and degraded in human nature, 
and demands that the poor creatures whom he so reaHstically hows to 
be slaves of passion, shall treat his book of passion as a work of pure art. 
Creatures of passion, they must read his book of passion without pas- 
sion. He is a very unreal realist who does not know human nature 
better. Writing freely of sexual relations, of intrigue, amour, seduction, is 
called "candor." Let us be candid all around. Books deahng with 
this subject sell, because the subject is much in the minds of men and 
women. The novelist knows that, among men especially, such books 
are eagerly sought after and read. If he will show as much candor about 
his books as in them he will admit that he knows that the purpose with 
which most men read them is prurient. 

It is also submitted with proper diffidence that the novel writers over- 
estimate the importance of their calling. The novel as it now exists is a 
purely modern invention. Mankind has demonstrated its ability to 
exist for even a long period without the novel. Just now the civilized 
world is much given to reading fiction, but that does not prove it to be a 
necessity. There is a craze for writing as well as reading it. The print- 
ing presses of all languages are discharging day by day floods of fiction. 
A little is good, more of it indifferent, most of it worthless. Some writers 
have produced their fifty books of three volumes. Is it any wonder that 
these clamor for "candor".? Naturally a strong seasoning is required 
to make one's fifty-first book palatable to an overfed public. The over- 
production is appalling, and the quality as a rule is anything but admi- 
rable. The old masters are dead, and their successors in the craft do 
not seem to be new masters. Hence another reason for demanding the 
right to employ "candor." 

Suppose that, by some inconceivable and tremendous dispensation 
the production of fiction should be summarily suspended, would man- 
kind suffer materially? Undoubtedly many flourishing publishing 
houses would be reduced to extremities, and a multitude of authors 
thrown out of employment; but would the world's material, intellectual 
or moral progress be seriously retarded? There are eminent men and 
women, even in this day of superabundant fiction, who have never read 
a novel. The novel is a luxury, not a necessity. The success of novel 
writers is not a matter of serious concern, except to themselves. They 
seem, however,' to regard their work as of primary importance, and to 
assume that it is their business to regulate the affairs of the universe. 



UNCHASTITY IN FICTION 1 73 

And yet how many of the novels that have been printed in the last ten 
years will be read twenty-five years hence? No doubt they can be 
counted on the fingers of one hand. 

The prevalence of novel reading is not a reason for relaxing the 
rules which a wise, conservative public opinion has prescribed, but, 
upon the contrary, is a reason for the rigid enforcement of those rules. 
No doubt there are novelists who demand "candor" solely for art's 
sake; but the world, knowing that even novelists are not devoid of human 
nature, will persist in believing that the writers are looking beyond "can- 
dor" to profits. This opinion derives strength from the fact that the 
loudest and most persistent advocates of "candor" are mainly in the 
rear ranks. 




THOMAS CARLYLE. 

AM glad of the opportunity to proclaim the greatness of a man 
of our own race who wrote in our own language and had, in 
the main, our own ideas of life, of conduct and of religion. 
Never was there a more striking illustration of the attraction 
of novelty for the human mind than is afforded by the tendencies of 
thought and of literature in the English speaking countries, and especially 
in America, in the last fifty years. Our writers, our philosophers and 
even our language have been, in a measure, discredited. Germany has 
been educating our young men, and they come back to us strongly in- 
clined to believe that Shakespeare was not quite so great a man as 
Goethe, that Cambridge and Oxford are provincial schools, that a 
broad scholarship is discreditable, and a narrow pedantic specialism 
the only thing worth having. 

Even our language, the best the world has ever known, is unsatisfac- 
tory to the new scholarship. One of the finest and dearest things in 
the language to me is the good old flat a. We are conceding everything, 
however, to the continental languages and are gradually suppressing 
this fine honest old English a. Shakespeare lived at Stratford on Ahvan 
according to some, and on Avoon according to others. I clapped my 
hands with delight the other day when I heard a man, born on that his- 
toric stream, call it y/-von. We are taking our scepticism from the con- 
tinent in innocent unconsciousness that the continent got it from Hobbes 
and Bolingbroke and their contemporaries and disciples. We get our 
science from Germany and France along with our philosophy with per- 
fect indifference to the fact that Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Charles 
Darwin and Herbert Spencer are men, neither one of whom has had 
his equal in his own department in any other race of men since the days 
of Plato and Aristotle. In his own branch of science Newton has never 
been equalled. Bacon made modern science. Darwin has influenced 
the thought of the last seventy-five years more than all other men com- 
bined; and Herbert Spencer, in comprehensiveness of intellect and power 
of analysis is superior to any five men, living in France or Germany today, 
combined. The English speaking race has the finest and best litera- 
ture in the world, the highest morality, and the most advanced and ex- 
cellent political institutions; and yet we are educating our young men 

( I7S ) 



176 THOMAS CARLYLE 

elsewhere. We who are here, or some of us, have Hved at the same time 
with Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley; and Spencer still lives, but we go to Ger- 
many and France to be taught science and philosophy. We have been 
contemporaries of Freeman, Green, Grote, Motley, Lecky, Bancroft; 
yet we are sure that Germany alone can produce historians. We have 
been contemporaries of Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot and Nathaniel 
Hawthorne; but we proclaim Balzac and Flaubert and Tolstoi the great 
novelists. In our own time we have had Tennyson, Swinburne, the 
Brownings, Longfellow, and a little earlier, Wordsworth and Coleridge; 
but we are profoundly dissatisfied with English poetry, and have such 
a violent attack of Balzac that we are about, or some of us are about, to 
proclaim a revolt against Shakespeare, to snatch from his weakening grasp 
the sceptre of literary kingship in order to bestow it upon the author 
of the "Droll Stories." 

I am conscious that in some respects I exaggerate somewhat, but 
this last is true. The frenzied disciples of the French novelists are de- 
termined that if they cannot unseat Shakespeare, they will at least estab- 
lish a duumvirate and seat Balzac, a sort of Mahdi in literature, along- 
side the author of Hamlet and Macbeth. This I take leave to regard 
as the finest piece of humor in the history of Hterature or of mankind. 
It is proper to say that no one can dispute the propriety and the certain 
benefits of studying the institutions and acquiring the learning of other 
nations. It is well enough to send our young men to Germany and to 
France, but it is unfortunate to have them become Germans or French- 
men. We would have them Americans with the learning of Germany 
and of France, broad and liberal in scholarship, catholic in sentim.ent, 
but not Germans or Frenchmen living in America. The germanizing 
and gallicising are perhaps natural and unavoidable results, which after 
all may be endured with serenity as only temporary. I have known 
young men who, having read Emerson, were wholly Emersonian in 
thought and style of speech for a long time. Every young reader of 
English poetry has an attack of Byronism at about the age of sixteen, 
but eventually most of them recover. 

Thomas Carlyle was a man more or less learned in the wisdom of 
many peoples, especially of the Germans, but he ^ived and died, and 
spoke and wrote as a Scotchman, that is to say as an Englishman from 
the north of the island. I have heard him called many things, but nothing 
that exactly meets my conception of him. He is called a seer, a preacher, 



THOMAS CARLYLE 1 77 

a poet, a scold, a fanatic, the arch-enemy of sham, the apostle of the 
genuine. To me he is the Covenanter in hterature, a characterization 
which may legitimately include many of the epithets just mentioned. 
The most conspicuous trait of his character was a strenuous earnestness. 
He preached in books as that other Scotchman, John Knox, the ancestor 
of his wife Jane Welch Carlyle, preached from the pulpit. He was as 
earnest, and sometimes almost as eloquent as Isaiah, sometimes as de- 
spondent as Jeremiah, sometimes as awful in prophecy and judgment 
as Elijah. In a certain true sense he belonged to the same intellectual 
and moral order with the prophets of Israel. He loved the literature 
of Germany, ancient and modern, but he remained a Covenanter. He 
had a great deal to say of the Nibelungenlied kind, and read and translated 
Goethe, and would dispute the thought of the Germans; but he re- 
mained an unordained and it may be an unorthodox preacher of the 
covenant. I do not refer to his theological opinions, but to his style of 
thought and of speech and his moral quality. Probably no Englishman 
ever read or admired Goethe more, but he was not an intellectual cha- 
meleon to take his color from whatever he touched. 

I do not attempt a history of his life, but only a superficial general 
description of him as a writer and as a thinker. I have referred 
to his strenuous earnestness. Along with this went a sincere love 
of the truth, and of goodness. He hated and incessantly denounced 
sham, pretense, falsehood. This was the quality of his first writings 
and of his last. As he grew older and as his uncompromising judg- 
ments were more frequently offended, he became more strenuous until 
at last his tone was indisputably strident, and he did much to justify 
those who called him a scold. Lowell was one of his contemporaries 
who resented this and intimated very plainly that the world was not to be 
scolded into virtue or propriety, and that the assumption of a monopoly 
of virtue was not becoming. But, whatever was said, Carlyle went on 
preaching, denouncing humbug, and lauding virtue while he lamented 
the paucity of it. Seeing how weak most men were, he conceived a 
profound distrust and something like contempt for the common herd, 
and came to believe that they needed always a strong hand to control 
them, so that his tone became strongly undemocratic. He naturally 
came also to admire and to sing the praises of strong men. His longest 
works were lives of Cromwell and of Frederick the Great. Men of 
force, iron men, as good representatives of absolutism as modern his- 

12 



178 THOMAS CARLYLE 

tory affords. Afterwards he wrote a book about men who had led and 
ruled other men, that is to say heroes. Everywhere he sings sincerity, 
always denounces sham. He is the apostle of belief, though not of any 
creed, and the unrelenting, invariable foe of unbelief. He says: ''The 
merit of originality is not novelty, it is sincerity. The believing man is 
the original man. . . . Every son of Adam can become a sincere 
man, an original man in this sense; no mortal is doomed to be an insincere 
man; whole ages, what we call ages of faith, are original. . . . These 
are the great and fruitful ages; every worker in all spheres is a worker 
not on semblance but on substance; every work issues in a result; the 
general sum of such work is great; for all of it is genuine, tends toward 
one goal; all of it is additive, none of it subtractive. There is true union, 
true kingship, loyalty, all true and blessed things, so far as the poor earth 
can produce blessedness for men." Again: "Hollow formalism, gross 
Benthamism, and other unheroic, atheistic insincerity, is visibly, even 
rapidly declining. ... I prophesy the world will once more be- 
come sincere; a believing world; with many heroes in it; a heroic world. 
It will then be a victorious world; never till then." 

I might quote much more, but this phase of Carlyle's character is 
the best known perhaps of all. To the sentiments which I have just 
quoted, I wish to add my humble amen, and amen. I believe in m.en 
who believe, in St. Paul, in Bernard of Clairvaux, in Chrysostom, in John 
Knox, in Martin Luther, in John Calvin, in John Wesley, in all the be- 
lieving men and all the martyrs of all ages. The men who believe are 
the men who do things, who have made all that we have that is worth 
having. Unbelief, no doubt, has its uses; but they are inferior. The 
sceptic is always a second man, the believer is first. With Carlyle I can 
even admire the arch fanatic Mohammed. We may call him an ignorant 
camel-driver, a furious and unreasoning, superstitious fanatic; but by 
virtue of his sincerity and belief, however mistaken, repulsive in many 
aspects his teachings are, he has influenced the minds of men and the 
course of history more than all the sceptics in the world combined. Be- 
lief made the world and rules it. 

Next in this brief sketch I remark that Carlyle was an idealist, the 
prince of idealists. The transcendentalist movement in Am.erica may 
be traced first to Carlyle and Coleridge, and thence backward through 
all the immortals who have bowed at the altars of the ideal from the days 
of Socrates and Plato downward. The finest product of transcendent- 



THOMAS CARLYLE 1 79 

alism was Emerson; and all who know anything of Emerson, know 
Carlyle's influence on him. Even Thoreau, who objected to that other 
idealist, Ruskin, because his books contained too much about art for 
himself and the Hottentots, admired and praised Carlyle. 

All prophets, all seers, all poets, are idealists. The glorious com- 
pany of the apostles were idealists; the goodly fellowship of the proph- 
ets were idealists; the noble army of martyrs were idealists; Homer, 
Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton, were idealists; Socrates, Plato, Ber- 
nard, Kant, Coleridge, Carlyle, and a multitude more, embracing the 
choicest spirits of the earth, were idealists; and I believe it to be true that 
in physical science even the divided quality of idealism has been of more 
service and of more benefit than the mere gift of prying and plodding. 

I have called Carlyle a poet. It ought not to be difficult to support 
this proposition in an age that is willing to call Whitman a poet, because 
it does not admit of denial that Carlyle has more imagination, more elo- 
quence, as much rhyme, and more reason than Whitman. The prime 
quality of the poet is imagination. I once read in a local paper an ac- 
count of a dreadful murder in this city, in which the writer, after giving 
sundry other striking details in a very commercial way, said finally: 
"There was about a bucketful of blood on the floor." The man who 
wrote that may not have been untruthful, but he was devoid of poetry. 
Recall in contrast to this frightful realism something of Carlyle's descrip- 
tions of the French Revolution. It is a far cry from the reporter's bucket- 
ful of blood to the lurid pictures that Carlyle paints, and paints truly in 
his French Revolution, of many blood-lettings. The poetic quality 
of his mind is manifest in everything that he wrote. He was a dramatic 
poet, and it has been said truly, I think, that for sublimity and awful- 
ness of description, one must go to Shakespeare to find Carlyle's superior 
among English writers. Carlyle said of the French Revolution that 
it was: "A truth clad in hell-fire." And he has depicted it in appro- 
priate colors and undiminished fervor. There is nothing like this book 
in our language. The last generation, except John Ruskin, scofi^ed at 
Turner's pictures on account of their intense and lurid coloring; but 
they do not approach Carlyle's pictures of the Revolution. All the fury, 
all the horror of that frightful orgy was apprehended by Carlyle's vivid 
imagination and put upon paper by his unequalled pen. There are 
passages in the book that stir the blood and thrill the nerves, and 
appall the imagination hardly less than the darker scenes of Macbeth. 



l8o THOMAS CARLYLE 

Of course it was only in quality of mind and imagination that Carlyle 
was a poet; he had none of the poet's gift of song. He had less capacity 
for rhyme and rhythm than Browning, although he was at times equally 
incomprehensible. He was not even superior to Whitman in versifi- 
cation. 

As a prose writer Carlyle was one of the best and one of the worst 
in the language. It is to be said first that his mastery of the language 
is unequalled, if we except Shakespeare, and it is not without hesitancy 
that one makes the exception. This much is certain, that his vocabulary 
was from ten to twenty times as large as Shakespeare's, and was by reason 
of his inexhaustible capacity to make words, capable of still farther and 
indefinite extension. I think Shakespeare had about six thousand words. 
. . . I am sure Carlyle had at least sixty thousand. I have gone 
from him, oftener than from all other English writers combined, to the 
dictionary, and frequently have returned unenlightened. Probably 
he learned from his German studies how to make words at will. 

In characterizing his style I have not endeavored to be paradoxical, 
but to speak sober truth. There are passages in his writings, that for 
eloquence, beauty and sublimity are not surpassed anywhere. There 
are also passages that are as rough as a corduroy road, and as unmelodi- 
ous as a Scotch bag-pipe out of tune, if a bag-pipe ever gets out of tune. 
There are sentences that flow for half a page without a flaw, throbbing 
with eloquence, inspiring in their beauty, perfect periods. There are 
others that consist of one word with an exclamation point, or two words 
or three, or ten, that run the gamut of shrillness, discord and extrava- 
gance. There are sentences of a dozen words with four or six semi- 
colons, half a dozen ordinary substantives or adjectives furiously capi- 
talized or italicised, and ending with a smash against two, or it may be 
more, exclamation marks. Some of his periods flow like a meadow brook 
in summer. Some are like a wild train whose rattling, roaring, unordered 
headlong career, ends in a collision, splintered wood, exploded boilers, 
blinding steam, deafening noise, terror, confusion, chaos. On some 
you ride pleasantly to the end, others jolt you oft' midway. Some are 
Arabian steeds whose flight is as smooth as a bird's, others are Texas 
buck-jumpers that unseat the most skilful or tenacious rider. 

The alternations of style, or better, the multifariousness of styles, is 
perhaps most conspicuous in the Heroes and Hero Worship. The French 
Revolution has much of it, but there the treatment as well as the sub- 



THOMAS CARLYLE l8l 

ject usually is epic. Everywhere there is more or less of this peculiarity, 
but the staccato element conspicuous first in Sartor Resartus became 
more prominent as he grew older. One of his very best essays is that 
on Burns; and upon the whole I recall none of his writings which sur- 
pass this in sustained moderation, elegance, and sanity of style, unless 
it be the essay on Voltaire. This last is my own favorite, as literature, 
among all his writings. The first three or four pages of it are equal to 
the best English prose. 

I do not suppose that any one really reads the Cromwell or the Fred- 
erick; I have tried both unsuccessfully. For the French Revolution 
I have a genuine enthusiasm of theory. The opening books I should 
know by heart, but my famiiliarity diminishes continually from that 
point. I am tempted almost to wish that some day we may have a trans- 
lation of it that will present its merits to the English speaking world 
with some degree of adequacy. It is a book to be admired and to be 
praised, but hardly one to be read. It is the world's great prose epic. 
It belongs with Paradise Lost, and the Inferno. Sartor Resartus, one 
reads, at least I do, as one reads Plato's Republic, or one of George Mere- 
dith's novels, with strainings and groanings, and incessant lashings of 
one's self to painful endeavor. Never was book so full of quips and 
cranks. It is compared to Stern's best humor, and likened to Cervante's 
immortal book. It no doubt has wit, wisdom, sarcasm, learning, philos- 
ophy, and all sorts and conditions of excellence, but frankly I do not 
enjoy it, nor get special profit from it. I know Carlyle best in his essays, 
which I have read diligently, admiringly and with much profit. I men- 
tion last Heroes and Hero Worship, one of the best books of modern 
times. It is one of the few books of its class that I have read twice and 
hope soon to read again. It is a great and inspiring book, full of truth 
and noble sentiments. It has all of the Carlyle peculiarities, but if it is 
at times strained and declamatory, shrill and harsh, it is essentially liberal, 
sane and uplifting. It is a book to be praised, to be admired and to be 
read many times. 

I have said frankly that I do not enjoy Sartor Resartus, and I add 
that while I cannot retract the statement, I do not wish to appear indiffer- 
ent to the lofty eloquence, the wisdom and the fine satire of many of its 
passages. It is intended to be a description of the civilization of the 
time, and it is easy to understand how an inspired dyspeptic, as Carlyle 
was, could find many objects of satire. It is interesting to note also 



1 82 THOMAS CARLYLE 

of this book that it is the first of his writings in which Carlyle put aside 
all considerations of grammar and rhetoric, and cast his sentences in 
moulds of his own conceiving. From the very beginning he had been 
given to ejaculation and irregularity; but in this book, written, I think, 
in 1833, when he was thirty-eight years of age, he adopted the style or 
want of style for which he was ever after distinguished, and which I 
account a distinct and inexcusable fault, and as a material and most 
unfortunate detraction of value in his works. I know of no term too 
strong to be used in condemnation of this fault, which every reader of 
his better written works knows to have been wilful, or at least curable. 
But whatever may be said of him, it remains true that for nearly half 
a century he was the most conspicuous of the English prose writers of 
serious purpose, that he was an honest man, and that being a very wizard 
of words he gave himself heart and soul to- battling for the right as he 
saw it. The natural intensity of his nature was increased to morbidity 
by physical infirmities and sufferings, but morally he was never per- 
verted. He was not always right, but all his impulses and purposes 
were right. I admire and love him for his earnestness, his honesty, 
his fearless devotion to conviction. 

Easy and satisfied men do nothing in the world. The easy and satis- 
fied ages are barren ages. It is the strenuous men and the strenuous 
ages that make for humanity and righteousness. Carlyle believed, and 
therein was right, that the aims of literature and of all things else should 
be moral. We have had the brute force of ancient conquerors, the art 
and literature of Greece, the law of Rome, the philosophy of India, but 
the salvation of men rests upon the moral teachings of a little and obscure 
nation which declares that the chief end, the chief duty of men, is to be 
righteous, that happiness and material prosperity alike depend on right- 
eousness. 

The prophet is not necessarily or primarily one who foretells, but 
rather one who declares truth, a preacher of righteousness. In this 
true sense Carlyle was a prophet. We may not agree with much that 
he wrote, he may not commend himself to the adherents of any creed; 
but he loved and proclaimed the eternal truths upon which all true creeds 
are based, and which they are intended to declare. He was the friend of 
truth and of righteousness, and '*he never feared the face of any man." 




THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN.* 

GREAT deal has been said and written of the need for a history 
of the South; and the admirers of the late Henry Grady were 
fond of predicting that to his brilliant genius we should be- 
come indebted for a history, which would fully "vindicate the 
South." 

I beg to say that we do not need nor desire vindication. We want 
the truth, vindication or no vindication. What we need is facts — facts 
correctly stated individually and in the aggregate — the unvarnished truth 
upon the facts. We may believe that this will be vindication enough, 
but let us demand truth, not vindication. It is hardly to be disputed 
that Mr. Grady would not have written a satisfactory history. A genius 
so brilliant as his could not have sustained the drudgery of historical 
examination and arrangement. Moreover the time has not come. No 
generation of men has true vision of the things done in its own time, 
and most men inherit the partisanship and prejudices of their fathers; 
so that generations must pass before the historical standpoint is reached. 
But "truth is mighty and will in time prevail." History is the truth. 
The definition is severe and no history ever written meets it absolutely. 
No historian ever saw or wrote the whole truth of any man or any event, 
and yet the truth never remains hid. The only criterion of truth after all 
is the general opinion of intelligent mankind, and its judgments ulti- 
mately are right. We should not try to hide the truth, for that is futile 
and dishonest; we should not fear it, for that is futile and cowardly. The 
time for writing the history of the Southern States, especially their late 
history, has not come, but it is always time to gather the material and pro- 
vide for its preservation. It has been my desire to contribute somewhat to 
this humble but indispensable preliminary work, but only as to colonial his- 
tory. It is one of the hopeful signs of the time, that throughout the South 
there is a growing interest in historical research. With very few excep- 
tions the State has employed competent men, who have prepared or 
collected, and published valuable historical papers. Tennessee enjoys 
the distinction of being one of the number which have not. 

The making of books on Southern colonial history is not confined 
to the South. Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, an accomplished gentleman 
and distinguished statesman, whose literary ambitions, it may be sus- 

* Published in The Arena, October, 1893. ( 183) 



184 THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 

pected, are somewhat in excess of his abiHties, has published a stout 
volume upon the history of the English Colonies of North America. I 
mention him as a type. I have had occasion to examine his book, and 
especially the chapter on Virginia, and I may say frankly, that while 
he has collected a considerable number of facts of early Virginia history, 
he does not seem to have digested them, nor to have caught their true 
significance. He does not appear to have penetrated below the sur- 
face, nor to have any real knowledge of the life and civilization of Vir- 
ginia; and I venture with some hesitancy the further suggestion that 
he has not manifested the true historical spirit, but rather the spirit and 
purpose of vigorous special pleading. There are few things less favor- 
able to the usefulness or trustworthiness of historical compositions than 
starting with preconceived opinions and proceeding with inadequate knowl- 
edge. This scholarly gentleman and politician, who in all probability is 
entirely free from any unfair purpose, affords a good illustration of the 
profound truth of Carlyle's utterance that no character is ever rightly 
understood until we are in sympathy with it; a wise saying, obviously 
no less true of societies than of individuals. To accuse Mr. Lodge of 
sympathy with the early Virginians would be wholly unjustifiable. Upon 
the other hand many Southern writers, some of them bent on vindication, 
have gone to the other extreme (for which I for one readily forgive them.) 
Whereas Mr. Lodge writes without sym pathy, they write with almost nothing 
but sympathy. Mr. Lodge paints Old Virginia as the dreary and sordid 
abode of indolence, ignorance, gambling, horse-racing, wine-bibbing and 
cock-fighting. The Southern writers, upon the other hand, wholly idealize it. 
The coarse, horsey, cock-fighting, deep drinking planters, who fill Mr. 
Lodge's chapter on Virginia, are not in their pages, but instead only the Bev- 
erlys, the Birds, the Tuckers. No coarseness, no ordinary mortals, but only 
fine ladies, fine gentlemen, fine birds, fine feathers. Gallants in flowing 
wigs, and spreading ruffles, stately dames, and dainty damosels rustHng 
in silk, bearing bravely immeasurable expanses of brocade over awful 
hoops, go their stately ways and dance graceful minuets. 

Both pictures are in a measure true to life, but even together they 
hardly tell the whole truth. Writers of both classes may profitably con- 
sider the unheeded advice to a very aspiring young gentleman of mythol- 
ogy, **Medio tutissimus ibis." 

The founder's of the Southern Colonies were average men and women 
according to the standards of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 



THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 1 85 

They had their full share of the vices and their full share of the virtues 
of their times. In the main they were Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotch- 
men, comparing not unfavorably with their compatriots. The oldest and 
most important of the colonies, of course, was Virginia, and it becomes 
highly important to know who the Virginians were in the beginning. 

The fact first to be noticed is, that of all the colonies Virginia was 
the most English. In blood the original Virginians were perhaps not 
more English than the Puritans. But the government which the Puri- 
tans set up in New England was a theocracy, a temporary materializa- 
tion, almost, of the hopes and theories of the Puritans in Old England, 
and of the Covenanters in Scotland. In Virginia the institutions in form, 
as well as the people, continued to be English. Politically, Virginia was 
England, modified by new and disadvantageous conditions. 

The Puritan was from the beginning a malcontent, a rebel. Not so 
much, however, for political as for religious reasons. Virginia, upon 
the contrary, was, until Bacon's rebellion, the most loyal, as she was 
the most favored colony; and during the century succeeding that rebellion, 
she was continuously upon the most amicable terms with the home coun- 
try and government. Indeed, it is familiar history that because Virginia, 
during the hundred years preceding the War of Independence, did enjoy 
unbroken peace and quiet, she was accused of indifference to the popular 
cause. Mr. Cabot Lodge and one other author whom I have consulted 
make precisely this use of the facts. 

The Puritan repudiated utterly, as a thing abominable, the Church 
of England; the Virginian established the Church and persecuted dis- 
senters; the Puritan embraced the commonwealth a'nd banished the 
royal Governor; the Virginian was steadfastly loyal to the Stuarts, invited 
the King to plant his scepter anew in the Virgin soil of his loyal colony, 
and refused to recognize the commonwealth until Cromwell's war-ships 
trained their cannon upon his capital. 

The antithesis might be indefinitely extended. Massachusetts and 
Virginia, to the superficial observer, were essentially unlike. In reality 
the unlikeness was superficial, and beneath it was a likeness which was 
essential. The people of the two colonies were of the same race, and 
in them was born and constantly burned the same love of liberty. In 
temperament they differed, but in every other material respect (if that 
be material), they were not only alike, but the same. The term cavalier 
has been very freely and not very accurately used in reference to Vir- 



l86 THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 

ginia. It may be said that a large number of the gentry of England did 
come to Virginia, and that they were influential there, just as their class 
was in England, and for the same reason. But when the need came 
the Virginia aristocrats were as staunch patriots as the Massachusetts 
democrats. We remember that it was not one order, but all orders of 
Englishmen that extorted the great charter from King John. The love 
of liberty has never been confined to the Commons. No name in Eng- 
lish history is dearer to the lovers of liberty than that of great Earl Si- 
mon. And after all it is a fact that the supply of plain people in Vir- 
ginia was abundant. 

Massachusetts was turbulent, Virginia placid; and yet when the trial 
came, Virginia was as quick as her Northern sister to declare for free- 
dom, and it was these two in constant harmony of purpose and action 
that bore the brunt and the burthen of the War of Independence. 

When Massachusetts defied England it was George Washington, 
of Virginia, who said that he was ready to raise and subsist a regiment 
at his own expense; if Warren fired the patriot heart by his eloquence, 
so did Patrick Henry; if Massachusetts gave Adams, Hancock, Otis, 
to the good cause, Virginia gave Randolph, Jefferson, Madison, Mar- 
shall, Washington; if Massachusetts never faltered, neither did Virginia. 
And after all it remains true, growing constantly more certain, that the 
foremost man of his time, greatest in will, greatest in heart, greatest in 
mind, was George Washington, of Virginia. 

It has become somewhat the fashion of later times in this country 
to belittle Washington. This is true even of a few persons of intelli- 
gence. We need a good course in American history to discover how 
great he was, and especially do I commend the histories of John Fiske, 
of New England, on whose clear pages Washington appears in just pro- 
portions. There is nothing of which the American people know less 
than their own history. 

Thus it appears that Virginia bore in the struggle for Independence 
a part no less trying, no less important, no less honorable than Massachu- 
setts. When the war began and when it ended, Virginia was the most pop- 
ulous, the richest, the most influential of the colonies, and this supremacy 
continued during the early years of the Republic. Gradually, and from 
causes which need not be considered here, the leading Northern States 
outgrew her in population and in wealth; but there was no time until 
the war between the States when Virginia was not the first and the most 



THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 187 

influential Southern State. A fact of the greatest importance is that 
the controlling elements of population in the younger Southern States 
came largely from Virginia. I notice for example in a recent publication 
that Virginia comes first in the list of States which have contributed 
to the population of this city, and it is probably safe to say that the 
same is true of every considerable community in the inland Southern 
States. Thus the Virginia stock and the Virginia principles extended 
their dominion -over most of the Southern States, and indisputably 
it was mainly Virginia and the Virginians that shaped their insti- 
tutions and gave tone and character to their civilization. I do 
not say that the Old Dominion exclusively controlled in these mat- 
ters, for that would be palpably untrue; but in considering the influ- 
ence of the several colonies in determining the quality of Southern civili- 
zation, I do say emphatically that the influence of Virginia was by far 
the most important. I feel little hesitancy in saying that it was para- 
mount. It is also true that while the population of the other Southern 
Colonies exhibited more heterogeneity than that of Virginia, the con- 
trolling element in all of them, from the beginning, was Anglo-Saxon. 
There was no contest for supremacy, but Virginia was dominant, simply 
because she was the oldest, the richest, and the most prosperous among 
these communities of kindred people and identical institutions. This 
conclusion without further analysis, suffices for my present purpose. 
These may be treated then as established facts, that among the South- 
ern Colonies, and the Southern States, Virginia was dominant; that Vir- 
ginia was essentially an Anglo-Saxon community; that Virginia was per- 
haps the most patriotic and thoroughly American of all the Colonies; 
and that knowing Virginia we know the salient and essential qualities 
of the people of the early South and of their social and political life. 

At this point I oflPer a word of explanation. I have used and shall 
continue to use freely, the term Anglo-Saxon. There is an Anglo-Saxon 
race and an Anglo-Saxon civilization. The civilization embraces more 
than the race. The distinctive characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon, polit- 
ically, is representative government. It is to the Teutonic race, and espe- 
cially to the English Teutons that the world is indebted for this polit- 
ical principle, which has shown its ability to overcome all the evils to 
which the greatest empires have succumbed. But this principle is not 
the exclusive property of the Anglo-Saxon race. In our Revolutionary 
war the Scotch and the Irish elements of our population were as brave, 



1 88 THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 

as patriotic, as self-sacrificing, as steadfast as the Anglo-Saxon. Their 
love of liberty was no less, and whatever antagonisms of race existed 
or may now exist, it is a fact that the political beliefs of the Scotch and 
the Irish people were, as they now are, the same essentially as those 
of the English. 

The relations of the Irish and of a certain class of the English are 
not at the present time altogether harmonious, but their political faith 
is not different; and the chief cause of the Irish discontent is the con- 
viction of the people that they are not allowed the fullest exercise of the 
right of local self-government; and local self-government is nothing more 
than another name for representative government. It may be said briefly 
that in most essential respects the political and social beliefs of Eng- 
land and of Ireland have been the same for centuries, having grown con- 
tinually more alike since the days of the first Edward. If we except 
the Highland Clans, the same statement may be applied to England 
and Scotland. 

I have been surprised to hear it asserted recently, and more than 
once, that the lowland Scotch are Celts. As a matter of fact it is exceed- 
ingly difficult to say precisely what they are. The mingling of races 
has been constant. The Irish and the Highlanders have remained per- 
sistently Celtic, but even the English is a highly composite race. If 
we omit certain parts of Spain where all the bloods of Europe, and possi- 
bly some from both Asia and Africa, have been mixed together, the low- 
land Scotchman has the most divergent and complicated genealogy in 
Europe. The race is not free from Celtic blood, but the intermixture 
has been occasional and the other and predominant elements are Teu- 
tonic. Some writers declare them to be Danes, but I prefer to believe 
upon authority that in the main they are Anglo-Saxon, and that includes 
the Danes. However this may be, I assert again that in so far as polit- 
ical and social beliefs and institutions are concerned, the English, Scotch 
and Irish settlers of North America were in no material respect different. 
I have already said that the fundamental article in the political creed 
was government by representation. The foundation principles of the 
social fabric were, as they are now, the purity of women and the sanc- 
tity of the family. It is interesting to note in passing, that while we 
claim these as essential properties of our German civilization, there is 
at present no country in which the purity of womanhood is so rigidly 
and so nobly maintained as it is in Ireland. Of the races which settled 



THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 1 89 

the Southern English Colonies, the most important, numerically and in 
every other respect, was the English; next in importance were the 
Scotch-Irish and the Irish. 

Of the Scotch-Irish, being one of them, I may say that they were 
lowland Scotch, that is to say Teutons, not Celts. They came to Amer- 
ica mainly from Ulster, where they had intermarried somewhat with 
the Irish; but they remained, above all, Scotch Presbyterians, accepting 
without mitigation the theology of John Calvin and John Knox, but 
strong in thrift and in acquisition. Their impress upon the civilization 
of Virginia, with which we are now mainly concerned, was powerful 
and beneficent, but we are somewhat inclined to overestimate it. I am 
personally very well satisfied to trace my descent from the Covenanters 
of old Scotland, and of the Valley of Virginia; but I am hardly prepared 
to subscribe to the new covenant, which would bind us to the assertion 
that most of the good things that have been done in this country have 
been done by Scotch-Irishmen. They have done so many good things 
that their descendants should be satisfied, and should forego the exorbi- 
tant claims which some of them are now disposed to make. It is 
important in estimating the formative influence of the Scotch-Irish 
race upon the civilization of Virginia to remember that the Scotch-Irish 
were late comers. It was not until a century and a quarter after the 
landing at Jamestown that they came in considerable numbers to the 
Valley of Virginia and the adjacent highlands. Here they set up the 
Church of their fathers, and from thence forward they and their descend- 
ants have been a mighty power for good. But when they came the Eng- 
lish ascendency had long been established in the colony. Virginia was 
already populous and her social and political institutions were shaped 
and fixed. All that the Scotch-Irish did was good, but they made less 
than two per cent of the population, and their comparative feebleness 
is indicated by the fact that so long as Virginia remained a colony the 
Church of England continued to be a part of the government. 

It was the inevitable result of the numerical superiority of the English 
that the modifications resulting from the contact of the two races were 
favorable to the stronger people. The racial persistency of the Scotch, 
a proverbially exclusive people, was not easily to be overcome and their 
religious faith was invincible; but in other respects they, like the rep- 
resentatives of all the other races that came to Virginia, were soon Anglicised. 

Tiic settlers of Virginia of other races than the three mentioned 



IQO THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 

were few in number, and if we except the Huguenots, their influence 
is hardly perceptible. The Germans settled in considerable numbers 
in the lower valley, and William Wirt is one of the great men contributed 
by them to Virginia. The Huguenots furnished a number of promi- 
nent families, such as the Dabneys, Maryes, and Flournoys. But the 
colony remained nevertheless essentially English. Its white population 
was perhaps as nearly homogeneous as the population of the Mother 
Country. Institutionally it was absolutely English. 

I have not time to consider at equal length the other three colonies, 
but content myself with saying that what has been said of Virginia is 
also true of them. They were English colonies in blood and in institu- 
tions. It is well known that the Huguenots came in large numbers to 
the Carolinas, and not a few of their best families of to-day came from 
that excellent stock. But the Anglo-Saxon was dominant in number 
and in influence, and in a few generations practically absorbed the others. 

We have then at the period of the revolution four English colonies, 
populous and prosperous communities, cherishing the principles of Anglo- 
Saxon freedom, and demanding for themselves all the rights and all the 
institutions which those principles imply. 

I pause here to say with emphasis that the three peoples who have 
built up the Anglo-Saxon civilization, the English, the Scotch and the 
Irish, together with the Dutch and the Swiss, whose institutions, social 
and political, are of the same stock, have both in action and in thought 
accomplished the best results of modern times. That is to say, that 
their schenies of life variant in details, but identical in essence, are the 
best the human mind has been able to construct. 

The American Revolution was not a breaking away from principles, 
but a revolt against vicious practices. It resulted, it is true, in certain 
institutional changes, but it is not necessary to say that in its essence the 
American polity remains identical with the English. It was not an 
eff^ort to establish new principles, but to have the benefit of principles 
long estalished; to get back to the English method, not to get away 
from it. 

I wish to say here in answer to the question in your minds: Yes, 
I know what Mr. Douglass Campbell has to say. I am fresh from read- 
ing the chapters in which he proves to his own satisfaction the incorrect- 
ness of all opinions but his own, on this subject. He would have us 
believe that practically everything that is good in America comes to us 



THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN I9I 

through the Puritans from the Dutch. The fact that the Dutch are 
of the same race with the EngUsh, and that their institutions are of the 
same origin and very similar, has enabled Mr. Campbell to employ his 
polemic faculties somewhat plausibly in the construction of a new and 
erroneous theory. I do not lightly oppose my own unsupported opinion 
against that of so eminent a man, but the facts and the authorities are 
against him. It may be said also that by his extreme advocacy, and 
his Procrustean use of facts he has discredited himself. He does not 
seek to prove that the American people are not EngHsh, but that the 
institutions of the Northern Colonies are of Dutch origin. I do not 
wish to be understood as denying anything good he has said of the Dutch 
people or institutions. In that respect he exaggerates nothing. No 
people has a nobler history. It cannot be denied that the Dutch influ- 
ences in America has been both important and salutary, but Mr. Camp- 
bell has vastly overstated it. He admits that Englishmen may be ex- 
cused for believing that our institutions are of English origin, but de- 
clares that no American is excusable. Let us see who are some of these 
inexcusables. 

If you will turn to George Bancroft's history of the United States 
you will find this title to part one of it, ''The English People found a 
Nation in America." In vol. 2, page 327, he says of America: "Eng- 
land was the mother of its language, the home of its traditions, the source 
of its laws." ''Dutch, French, Scandinavian, and German renounced 
their nationality to claim the rights of Englishmen in America." 
In the same connection he says distinctly that the Colonists held their 
own system to be a copy of the English with additional privileges to the 
common people 

John Fiske says (Civil Govt., p. 187) in regard to the written Consti- 
tution: "Almost everything else in our fundamental institutions was 
brought by our forefathers in a more or less highly developed condition 
from England." Again he says of the Federal Union (Civil Govt. 201): 
"The inhabitants were all substantially one people. It is true 
that in some of the colonies there were a good many persons 
not of English ancestry, but the English type absorbed and assimilated 
everything else. All spoke the English language, all had English insti- 
tutions. Except the development of the written Constitution, every 
bit of civil government described in the preceding pages came to Amer- 
ica directly from England, and not a bit of it from any other country, 



192 THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 

unless by being first filtered through England. Our institutions were 
as EngHsh as our speech." These two men (Bancroft and Fiske) are 
the highest authority on this subject in America, both of far greater weight 
and ability than Mr. Campbell, and neither of them a controversialist. 
They are historians, Mr. Campbell is a polemic. Mr. Campbell would 
have it that the Puritans stayed eleven years at Leyden and brought 
away with them all the Dutch institutions. Mr. Fiske says they came 
away from Holland in order to preserve their own traditions and organi- 
zation and to carry out purposes which were impossible there. 

Sir Henry Maine, one of the giants in his department, says (Pop. 
Govt. p. 207) : "The Constitution of the United States is a version of the 
English Constitution." In the same vol., p. 9, he says, "Modern popu- 
lar government is of purely English origin." On p. 11, he says, "The 
American Constitution is distinctly English." 

Edward A. Freeman says: "In a sense the English and American 
Constitutions are the same." 

So far as authority goes, Mr. Campbell is in a hopeless minority, and 
I call attention to the fact that the book by Fiske, from which I quote, 
was printed in 1892, so that the author had the same advantages of mod- 
ern research that Mr. Campbell had, and I do not hesitate to say that 
Mr. Fiske is the most conscientious, just and competent student and 
writer of American history. He is now devoting all his time to the sub- 
ject. Mr. Campbell's book has had such large local currency that I have 
felt it necessary to say this much in support of my position. The limited 
space available has compelled me to confine myself to the citation of 
authority. I wish you to bear in mind also that I have not been discuss- 
ing the relative merits of the Dutch and English civilization, but only 
the derivation of American civilization, and that merely in outline and 
not in detail. 

It is not to be disputed that from early mediaeval times to almost the 
period of the great English Revolution, and the final expulsion of the 
Stuarts, the Dutch led the march of civilization in Europe. In the me- 
chanic arts, and in commerce and finance, they were easily first, ana 
Holland was a light-house of civil and religious liberty. Her history 
is illustrated by the most heroic and sublime struggle for freedom that 
m^en have ever made, but these splendid and incontestable facts do not 
destroy the other fact that American institutions are, broadly speaking, 
English in origin and in quality. That the establishment of the 



THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN I93 

American Republic was an advance in the true line of Anglo-Saxon 
development cannot, in my judgment, be successfully denied. But while 
the American colonists were chiefly men of the Anglo-Saxon race, they 
were not, at the period of the Revolution, Englishmen. Theodore Roosevelt 
is right when he says that there was at that time a race which was distinct- 
ively American. White men had been living in Virginia and in New 
England for one hundred and fifty years, and in most of the other 
colonies nearly as long. Few Americans of that time had ever seen 
England; the broad and troubled expanse of the Atlantic was not quickly 
nor easily crossed; very few could afford to travel; the mixture of alien, 
and sometimes unfriendly blood had moderated the sentiment of loyalty 
to Britain; and the free life under wholly new conditions had begotten 
habits and feelings of independence. The people were called Ameri- 
cans, they were not treated as Englishmen, and they had their pride 
of country and their love of country. The period was ample for har- 
monizing the various elements, and for creating local attachments, but 
more important than all was the recognition of a community of inter- 
est and of destiny. So that we have in the Southern colonies at the time 
of the Revolution a population whose prevailing characteristics were 
Anglo-Saxon, and a civilization which was absolutely Anglo-Saxon, but 
this population was not English, it was American. The future progress 
of these communities, if left to themselves, will necessarily be along the 
line of the grand old German civilization. The institutions of America 
are more liberal, more rational, more beneficent than those of England, 
of Holland, of Switzerland; but they have no development of which 
the germ may not be found in the crude polity of the old Germans, of 
which the English, the Dutch and the Swiss civilization were born. 

If the other colonies had been different in race or in institutions, 
their modifying influence upon the Southern Colonies would necessarily 
have been great, but they were also in the main Anglo-Saxon. In course 
of time the Northern States underwent important changes in population. 
The opening of the third decade of this century witnessed the setting 
in of that mighty tide of immigration which has "known no retiring ebb." 
Immigration seems to have a tendency to follow isothermal lines, a fact 
which makes Italian immigration a menace to the South. Most of the 
immigrants have been, until recently, from the north of Europe. This 
is probably not the only cause of the northward and westward flow 
of immigration, but we are less concerned with causes than with the 

facts. We know that the South has had almost no immigration. 

1.3 



194 THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 

Consequently the increase of population has been much less in the 
South than in the North and West. In certain Western States the for- 
eign population is supreme. It controls their politics and casts down 
rulers and parties for the heinous crime of wishing to have the English 
language taught in the public schools. The little pocket-borough of 
Nevada, a notable mart for the sale of senatorships, affords a striking 
illustration of the benefits of foreign rule. 

Since the days of Imperial Rome, when the sway of the Caesars, ex- 
tending from the Humber to the Indus, from the Scythian Wilderness 
to the Ethiopian Deserts, brought together in the Eternal City multi- 
tudes of all the peoples dwelling in those wide limits, and begat a race 
infinitely composite and infinitely corrupt, there has been no such a 
mingling of blood as we now witness on these western shores. 

New York is more Jewish than Jerusalem ever was, more German 
than any city on earth except Berlin, and probably more wicked than 
any except Chicago. Chicago is American only in politics and in geog- 
raphy, and Cincinnati only in pork and in manners. Of the 15,000,000 
descendants of the old Puritans, Boston retains a very few, and New 
England has become the refuge of so many French-Canadians that re- 
cently some of them in an outburst of gallic enthusiasm proposed the 
establishment of a new Latin republic with Boston as its capital. 

But statistics are more convincing than general statements, and in- 
deed much more entertaining. There is no more fascinating study. 
According to the late Mr. Buckle, everything can be proved by statis- 
tics, and more recent writers have demonstrated that when skillfully 
handled they are capable of proving anything. In this instance I take 
them straight from the unimpeachable census reports of the United 
States for the purpose of showing, not that the other States are not Amer- 
ican, but that the South is American. I confine my attention exclusively to 
the white population. According to the census of 1890 there were for 
every 100,000 native born Americans, 17,330 foreign born. The State 
of New York has in round numbers, 4,400,000 native and 1,500,000 
foreign born citizens, being 35,000 foreign for every 100,000 native. In 
Illinois the number of foreign born for each 100,000 native is 28,200; 
in Michigan, 35,000; in Wisconsin, 44,400; in Minnesota, 56,600; in 
Montana, 48,400; North Dakota, 80,400. 

When we turn to the Southern States the contrast is impressive. By 
Southern States I mean Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Ken- 



THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 195 

tucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South CaroHna, Ten- 
nessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. I do not include Delaware, 
Maryland and Missouri. 

The white population of Tennessee is 1,336,000, and the total num- 
ber foreign born 29,629; that is to say for every 100,000 native born whites 
there are 1,500 foreign born; North Carolina has native whites 1,055,000, 
foreign born 3,702, or for each 100,000 native born, 370 foreign born. 

In the other Southern States the figures are as follows: 

Native Foreign 

Alabama 833,000 15,000 

Arkansas 818,000 14,000 

Florida 225,000 22,000 

Georgia 978,000 12,000 

Kentucky 1,600,000 59,000 

Mississippi 545,000 8,000 

Louisiana 558,000 49,000 

South Carolina 462,000 6,000 

Texas 1,700,000 152,000 

Virginia 1,000,000 18,000 

West Virginia 730,000 18,000 

I have omitted the odd hundreds and the total foreign born white 
population of the South; counting in these odd hundreds amounts to 
about 380,000. 

Massachusetts alone has a foreign born population of 657,000; New 
Jersey 329,000, or nearly as many as the whole South; New York nearly 
1,600,000, or four times as many as the South; Pennsylvania 845,000; 
Ohio 459,000, or more than the entire South; Illinois 842,000; Michigan 
and Wisconsin each over 500,000; Minnesota nearly 500,000; and California 
366,000. If we omit Kentucky, Louisiana and Texas, the little State of Con- 
necticut has 60,000 more foreigners than all the remainder of the South; 
and wee Rhode Island, approximately as large as Knox County, has 
within 14,000 as many foreigners as the entire South, omitting the three 
States named. 

But these figures do not indicate the real importance and influence 
of the foreign born population. One of the mitigated and highly quali- 
fied blessings which we enjoy is universal suffrage. It is diHicult to 



196 THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 

find one's consent to a suffrage limited in any way, but there is abundant 
justification for dissenting from a system which converts a foreign an- 
archist like John Most into an American citizen in a very few years, 
honestly and on any political emergency, immediately and dishonestly. 

The proportion of adult men among immigrants is much larger than 
in settled societies. For instance, of the 1,571,000 foreign born citizens 
of New York, 1,084,000 are voters, while of 4,400,000 native born citi- 
zens, 1,769,000 only are voters. In percentages the foreign born vote 
in New York is 38.73; in Illinois, 36.39; in Michigan, 40.22; in Wis- 
consin, 52.93; in Minnesota, 58.55; North Dakota, 64.89; Nevada, 51.41; 
California, native 49.79, foreign 50.21. 

These are foreign countries, and it is a positive relief to turn to the 
South and feel that there are still some Americans left. The percentages 
of native and foreign born voters in some of the Southern States are as 
follows : 

Native Foreign 

Tennessee 97.00 3.00 

Kentucky 93-00 7.00 

Alabama 97-50 2.50 

Mississippi 98.00 2.00 

Louisiana 90.00 10.00 

Texas 86.00 14 .00 

Arkansas 97.00 3.00 

Virginia 97.00 3.00 

West Virginia 95.00 5.00 

North Carolina 99-39 O-^i 

South Carolina 98.00 2.00 

Florida 89.00 1 1 .00 

Georgia 98.00 2.00 

I have used the word voters to describe the class of immigrants last^ 
referred to. It is not a fact, however, that they are all voters. More 
than a million of them are aliens. Of this million it is probable that 
most of the dishonest ones vote; and the fact that a man is willing to live 
in America and remain an alien marks him as unworthy. Such a man 
cares nothing for freedom, except as it may serve his personal ends, has 
no conceptions of the duties of citizenship, and is unworthy to enjoy 
them. It is interesting to know that some thirty-two per cent of these 
foreign Americans cannot speak the English language. 



THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 1 97 

I will not confuse you with more figures, but the statement which 
I now make is important. I have made comparisons of census reports 
for i860, 1870, 1880 and 1890, and in none of the Southern States except 
Kentucky, with the large city of Louisville; Louisiana, with the large 
city of New Orleans, and Texas lying on the Mexican frontier, has there 
been a material increase of foreign population since i860. That there 
was none before that date is certain. In the North precisely the contrary 
is true, and when we consider how constant has been the turbid flow 
of immigration it is appalling to think how hybrid the population is. 

The white population of the Southern States then has come almost 
entirely from the natural increase of the original settlers. Who these 
original settlers were I have already said. They were sturdy men and 
women, mainly of the good old English race, leading the westward and 
resistless march of Anglo-Saxon civilization. They were the true sons 
and daughters of liberty. From the days of Tacitus their race has stood 
in the world's history as the exemplar and champion of personal purity, 
personal independence and political liberty. For them no life but one 
of freedom was possible. These traits have descended to their children 
from generation to generation, and I can never believe that hybrid popu- 
lation of Russians, Poles, Italians and Hungarians, which fills so many of 
the Northern and Western cities and States, has the same love of this 
country, the same love of liberty, that we have, whose fathers wrested 
the land from the savage, and whose native air is freedom. The strongest, 
most concentrated force of Americanism is in the Southern States, and 
Americanism is the most advanced form of Anglo-Saxon, of German civiliza- 
tion. There is no part of the globe except the kingdom of England which 
is so thoroughly and essentially Anglo-Saxon as the South. In asserting 
this elsewhere, I have met no serious denial, but it has been said that 
the very homogeneity of our population is a preventive of progress. One 
gentleman profoundly learned in the science of sociology declared that 
homogeneity was productive of fixity, and that heterogeneity was indis- 
pensable to plasticity. Afterwards I discovered where Herbert Spencer 
makes a materially modified and decidedly more appropriate use of these 
ponderous phrases. 

It is freely asserted, not without truth of course, that the conditions 
of progress are better fulfilled in America than elsewhere, because we 
are in a state of flux and therefore higlily impressionable. There is, 
however, socially and intellectually a degree of flux which is more injuri- 



198 THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 

ous than the most rigid fixity, an excessive plasticity which will admit 
of no impression. Herbert Spencer, writing of social types and consti- 
tutions, says: "The half-caste, inheriting from one line of ancestry pro- 
clivities adapted to one set of institutions, and from the other line of 
ancestry proclivities adapted to another set of institutions, is not fitted 
for either. He is a unit whose nature has not been moulded by any social 
type, and therefore cannot with others like himself evolve any social 
type." As examples he cites Mexico and the South American Repub- 
lics. He also refers to England, a country peopled mainly by varieties 
of the Scandinavians as one in which the conditions are favorable to co- 
operation, and I may as well admit here frankly that I do not regard the 
unlikeness between the Anglo-Saxon and the other branches of the Aryan 
family as sufficient to make intermixture in any direction a serious ob- 
stacle to progress, or preventive of co-operation. The trouble with us 
is, that at present we are receiving only the most inferior elements of 
those branches of the Indo-Germanic family, whose political and social 
life is most strongly contrasted with our own, together with large num- 
bers whose connection with that family is, to say the least, doubtful. 
It is hardly possible to dissent from the beautiful optimistic theory 
that it is the high privilege of this great country to accomplish the fusion 
of all the branches of the Aryan family; but when we consider the nature 
of the particular elements with which we are required to fuse, the task 
assumes proportions which demand all the enthusiasm a lofty purpose can 
beget. The Southern American, with his English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, 
Huguenot ancestry, has enough diversity to secure all needed plasticity, 
and moreover, the world is now become more neighborly. We have con- 
tacts in all directions, and receive impulses from all nations, and there 
is no reason why we should hybridize ourselves. I would not unduly 
exalt our own race, nor our own civilization, nor exclude any worthy 
man or woman from the priceless benefits of this free government, but 
replying to the demand for plasticity, I may modify John Tyndall's 
catching phrase, and say that I behold in the American people of the 
original race, "the promises and the potency of every form and quality" 
of successful national life, and of unlimited progress. 

I turn now to an argument which must be handled delicately but 
frankly. It is freely said "it is true the people of the South are Ameri- 
can, and have preserved the Anglo-Saxon traits better than the people 
of the other States, but a war was necessary to keep them in the Union." 



THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 1 99 

Love of country is a noble sentiment, but love of principle is a nobler 
one. No one ever censured the pilgrims of the Mayflower because they 
abandoned the land which had been the home of their fathers for twelve 
hundred years, and fled to the western wilderness rather than surrender their 
faith. They were faithful to a principle. I claim for the people of the 
South in the war between the States absolute good faith. As to whether 
they were right, we must be content to have the impartial judgment 
of the future say. To discuss that question now could do no good. 
The principles in behalf of which the South fought are embodied 
in the Constitution of the United States. To that instrument, I reaflfirm, 
the South has never been unfaithful. Her construction of it, whether 
right or wrong, was reached and maintained in good faith. 

Permit me to indicate briefly the extent of her participation in the 
formation of the Constitution and in the establishment and support of 
the republic. I have already referred to her part in the War of Inde- 
pendence, and I now assert, in the language of one of our foremost South- 
ern Congressmen, that the Constitution was ''adopted and promulgated 
by a convention in which Southern influence predominated." The 
title of Chapter 2, of part I, of Bancroft's history is, "Virginia Statesmen 
lead toward a better Union." The movement for the establishment of 
the Constitution was inaugurated by Virginia, and if any one doubts 
the statement that the influence of George Washington, of Virginia, 
rendered the convention possible, as it might have prevented it, I refer 
him to the greatest living American historian, who is a New Englander. 
Rutledge and Pinckney, of South Carolina, were the most important 
contributors to the form and to the substance of the Constitution, with 
one single exception, viz.: James Madison, of Virginia, who justly bears 
the glorious name of Father of the Constitution. Such imperfections 
as were perceived in the original instrument were cured by the Bill of 
Rights, which was mainly the work of Thomas JeflFerson, of Virginia. 
The Constitution was first construed by John Marshall, of Virginia, whose 
decisions remain unchanged, as they will remain, so long as the Con- 
stitution endures. During almost the whole of the formative period of 
our national life. Southern statesmen held the Presidency and controlled 
our policy. They gave to us Florida, now become a modern Sybaris, 
whither the sons and daughters of the frozen North flee from the inhos- 
pitalities of their own winter climate to luxuriate in perennial sunshine 
and in palaces of more than oriental magnificence. They added to our 



200 THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 

domain that tremendous and fabulously rich empire which sweeps from 
the Mississippi westward to the South seas. The school of strict con- 
structionists, which made a fetich of the Constitution, was founded by a 
Southern statesman, and drew most of its adherents from the South. 
When the Southern Confederacy was formed, it adopted as its organic 
law the Constitution of the United States, with a very few modifications, 
all of which aimed at a more perfect democracy or at the removal of the 
ambiguities of the old Constitution. There is no fact nor logic which 
can prove that the South ever deviated from her fealty to the Constitu- 
tion or ever shed a drop of blood except in defense of the principles of the 
Constitution as she construed them. 

I have said this much upon this delicate subject in no spirit of ill will 
or controversy, but only to indicate the true spirit and tendency of South- 
ern civilization. It is necessary to have in mind this indisputable fact, 
that if the South at one time desired the severance of the Union, she was 
never, in any respect, unfaithful to the great principles of free government, 
which are the life and the soul of the Constitution. She believed that 
she must surrender either the body or the soul. The war construed the 
Constitution, and I affirm that the South has in good faith and unreserv- 
edly accepted every legitimate result of the war. No man who is honest 
and who is also adequately informed will say that her people are not as 
loyal to the Constitution and to the Union as the people of any other sec- 
tion. I go further and say that in the troubles which the future is sure to 
bring, the principles and the institutions of American liberty will find 
ready, loyal and efficient support among the white people of the South. 
In these Southern States a homogeneous American population of twelve 
millions will be the old gaurd of the Constitution. 

The illiteracy of the South is constantly used to reproach her. It is 
unfortunately true that education has not been diffused nor encouraged 
as it ought to have been, but the controlling forces of Southern life have 
been from the beginning, highly intelligent, and the plane of life has 
been exceptionally high. One may not deny that class distinctions were 
formerly too much recognized, but also it is true that the method was 
the best for the time. Changed conditions, however, imperatively re- 
quire a new social arrangement. Of the Old South it must be remem- 
bered that the best element ruled, and that the best element produced 
and acted through men who were both morally and intellectually fore- 
most in their time. 



THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 201 

If you care to investigate the subject, you will find that before the 
war the proportion of college-bred men to white population was much 
higher in the South than in any other section. But while I state these 
facts, I wish to say that the masses of people of the South do not even 
yet fully realize the tremendous importance and advantages of educa- 
tion, and it may be further said frankly, that in no part of the South 
are the interests of education more constantly endangered by an over- 
weening and dangerous commercial spirit than in our own section, and 
in our own community. The highest pleasures of life are intellectual, 
and highest duties of life can be performed only by men of enlightened 
and disciplined minds. A fatal mistake, very common among our best 
people, is to thrust their sons into the grinding and absorbing pursuits 
of commerce as soon as they have acquired the rudiments of education. 
I have great respect for the man who, in the greedy scramble for money, 
comes out with a hand full, and I recognize the imperativeness of the 
duty to provide for one's self and family; but to be admired and respected 
above all, is the man or the woman whose enlightened mind is the home 
of broad and liberal thought, and of the just judgments and noble aspira- 
tions which it begets. This is best for men and for business also. It is 
literally true, as Mr. Breckinridge said a year ago, that the superiority 
of New England in the affairs, no less than in the literature, of this 
country is due to her trained mind. Sound opinion in this respect is 
constantly growing in the South and the future promises everything we 
can wish. 

A disregard for human life and a consequent readiness to shed blood 
on inadequate provocation, has been charged against the South at all 
stages of her history, and the accusation has only too much justification. 
It must be borne in mind, however, that in new and sparsely settled 
countries the means of enforcing the law by the machinery of govern- 
ment are always deficient, and occasions when self-preservation not only 
justifies, but compels the individual to take the law in his own hands, 
are not infrequent. The increase of population and the accumulation 
of property have never failed in this country to cause the establishment 
of wise laws, civil and criminal, with the necessary agencies for their 
enforcement. We may remember with pride that sixty years ago the 
legislature of Tennessee put down forever the practice of dueling in this 
State. We must condemn the violence and readiness to shed blood, which 
remains a blot upon our Southern civilization, but it is one of the open 



202 THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 

and curable vices of a new society and far less to be feared than the secret, 
insidious, and incurable vices of the old societies, whose representatives 
are continuously poured into our North and East from the pestilent 
immigrant ships. The burning of a brutal negro in Texas was an atrocity 
which can neither be justified nor excused, but every one knows that it 
was an outburst of frenzy provoked by a crime of unparalleled infamy, 
and that it was wholly exceptional, representing nothing. The anarchist 
riots in Chicago a few years ago, and the annual demonstrations of that 
large number of anarchists who unfortunately were not hanged, prove 
the existence in that city of an organized, active, powerful, and ferocious 
opposition to society and law, and this is true of all the larger cities of 
the North and West. The Texas crime was, I repeat, wholly unpre- 
meditated and exceptional, while the Chicago crime was the deliberate 
manifestation of the sentiment and purpose of tens, it may be hundreds 
of thousands of persons still living, hating, plotting in that wonderful 
city. 

The irresistible progress of Christian civilization in the South prom- 
ises everything good; and the unchecked flow of criminal immigration 
into the North promises nothing good. I say here as I have written else- 
where, that there is a kind of immigration which the South does desire. 
That is American immigration. The strength of our own community 
consists largely of our countrymen who have come to us from the North 
and West. They are friends of law, of education, of morality. For my- 
self I say that I have found among them some of the strongest, the most 
cherished, the most elevating friendships of my life. 

The problems presented to the South are of tremendous difficulty, 
but they are not beyond her powers. Let me quote what Charles 
Dudley Warner has to say of us. Writing of religious conditions in the 
South he says: "Will it not be strange, said a distinguished biblical scholar 
and an old time anti-slavery radical, if we have to depend after all upon 
the orthodox conservatism of the South .? For it is to be noted that the 
Southern pulpit holds still the traditions of the old theology and the mass 
of Southern Christians are still undisturbed by doubts. They are no 
more troubled by agnosticism in religion than by altruism in sociology. 
There remains a great mass of sound and simple faith.'* No doubt some 
will say that this very conservatism is a grave fault. I like a man who 
believes something and believes it with might and main. There is 
so much of that spiritless, emasculated kind of skepticism, which its 



THE SOUTH IS AMERICAN 203 

professors call agnosticism, that one would welcome another Knox or 
Calvin. In some moods I would vote for the return of the Puritans. 
But that aside, we have it established that socially, politically, relig- 
iously, the South has progressed steadily and invariably along true lines; 
that hers is a true Anglo-Saxon Christian civilization. It has always 
been so, and it is to the South that the country must look in the future 
for its inspirations to sound and simple faith in politics, no less than in 
religion. I do not mean party politics; I mean the essential principles 
of representative government. 

I have only one thing more to say. It is not uncommon to hear of 
conventions, and to read editorials, in aid of immigration. What I have 
said is not friendly to indiscriminate immigration, and having said as 
much elsewhere, I have been met with the assertion that we cannot, without 
immigration, develop our country. There is nothing so irrational as all 
this hurry to develop things. I would far rather leave the development 
to a remote posterity than accomplish it with the aid of Italian lazzaroni 
and Hungarian paupers. Let us keep our blood clean and pure. We get 
along well enough as it is. Development is desirable, but it need not be 
instantaneous. Let us leave to our children something to develop. If 
we develop everything what will they do for occupation .? Let us develop 
ourselves; study our Yankee cousins and learn thrift and economy, and 
content ourselves with moderate earnings and savings. And so having 
entered my special plea, I say again, as in the beginning, that now is the 
time to gather the material of our history and have it ready for the hands 
of that great historian who is coming to us sooner or later. 




THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER * 

OSTHUMOUS success is an excellent thing in its way, but it 
is natural to wish for earlier returns from our investments. 
Thoreau was not exempt from this common weakness. Early 
in his career he printed a book, but the public declined to con- 
cur in his belief that it was worth printing, and he endured the mental 
and physical discomfort of carrying a large part of the edition up to the 
garret on his back. His correspondence with Horace Greeley proves 
that for many years the great editor was peddling manuscripts from Con- 
cord among the impecunious proprietors of such ephemeral and forgotten 
publications as "Putnam's" and "Graham's" Magazines. 

Perhaps no man, in America at least, lived as cheaply as Thoreau. 
Six or seven weeks of manual labor furnished him a year's support. He 
was a copious writer, but was compelled to resort to manual labor for 
the means of existence. A few men, and perhaps one woman, being 
of the higher order and sympathetic, bought his first book, and read it 
and praised it, but the great mass, or rather the small mass of American 
readers, was obstinately blind to its merits. 

As I turn this morning to my book shelves, I count eight handsome 
volumes inscribed with the name of "Thoreau," and the circular of a 
great publisher informs me that I may, if so minded, purchase two more. 
Ten volumes published and widely circulated, a rich source of income 
to the publisher! In his lifetime the author could not sell his best thought 
and his best writing. Now his very note-books, the undigested chance 
jottings in his diary, are quickly sold, and it may be, occasionally read. 
Is it what we vulgarly call a "fad," this revival of Thoreau, or has it a 
substantial cause .f* Is it a caprice, or a manifestation of deliberate and 
sound judgment.'' It is no new thing in literature for meritorious writers 
to fail in their own generation, and become the favorites and heroes of 
later times. Shakespeare waited two hundred years for full recognition, 
but now for a century he has held the undisputed first place, and the 
literature of Shakespeare rivals in quantity and surpasses in quality 
the prose literature of England in Shakespeare's time. 

Does Thoreau fall within the category indicated.'' Was it the fault 
of the public and not of the author that "Walden," and the "Week" fell 

•Published in New Englaiui MaRazino and Vale Rrviow. Novcml)t>r, iScji. (205) 



206 THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 

SO flat, and that the charming sketches in "Excursions" commanded 
only starvation prices ? Has Thoreau re-appeared as a comet in the Hter- 
ary firmament, or has it been discovered that he is one of the fixed stars? 
Is there reason for beheving that he can maintain in our literature the con- 
spicuous position to which, in the last fifteen years, he has been assigned 
by the strenuous kindness of friends and the well conducted advertising 
of his publishers ? Were his asceticism and solitariness mere eccentrici- 
ties and affectations, or were they the marks of a genius, so high or so 
fine that it could find no fit consort? Did they indicate a superior 
endowment, or upon the contrary, an inferior quality of mind, a cer- 
tain unsoundness, giving rise to distorted opinions of life and duty? 
Is his literary work of real excellence? Will it endure the tests of 
time and increasing culture? Is it sufficient support for a claim to im- 
mortality? Is it in form or substance the work of a master? 

First as to the man. He was of Gallic blood, filtered through the 
Channel Islands. In blood as well as in intellect, he was of kin to Rous- 
seau, Victor Hugo and Chateaubriand, the sentimentalists. In his way, 
he was as wildly sentimental as Rousseau, and apparently as ready as the 
red republicans of France to upset the existing order. He found almost 
as much to condemn in sedate and democratic Concord, where philos- 
ophy was ere long to find her western abode, as the revolutionists saw in 
Paris or Versailles. 

He was educated at Harvard, where he was in no way distinguished, 
and began life by teaching and making pencils. In the latter vocation 
he found his first opportunity to gratify his passion for eccentricity. Hav- 
ing made a useful invention, he refused to apply for a patent for it be- 
cause it would not benefit him to do again what he had already done. 
The same reasoning might have induced him to refuse copyright for his 
books, but I have not found that he did so. At all events, it seems that 
it would have been better to take the patent and its proceeds than to 
borrow, as he afterwards did. He was a skilled mechanic, and was also 
abundantly qualified to earn his living as a surveyor. He did not marry, 
nor try to marry, would not vote nor pay his taxes, nor go to church. 
He was, in an amusing way, a secessionist and a nuUifier. 

James Parton has written an elaborate and laborious argument at- 
tempting to prove that the doctrines of Mr. Calhoun, in their ultimate 
analysis, would put it in the power of each individual citizen to nullify 
or veto the acts of Congress. It is not an important fact, but it is divert- 



THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 207 

ing to find our Diogenes of the Walden Woods asserting this very theory. 
In his essay on "Civil Disobedience," he says: "Some are petitioning 
the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisition of the Presi- 
dent. Why do they not dissolve it themselves.? — the union between them- 
selves and the State — and refuse to pay their quota into the treasury .f* 
Do not they stand in the same relation to the State that the State does to the 
Union V' In the same essay, he advises the abolitionists of Massachusetts to 
withdraw their support both in person and in property from the State gov- 
ernment. Some of his utterances go beyond secession and nullification. He 
declares that the same objections which apply to standing armies may 
be brought against standing governments, and it would not be difficult 
to convict him of a degree of sympathy with some of the extravagancies 
of the anarchists of our own time. He was also a free trader. This is 
obviously a necessary part of his belief. It was his theory that every mian 
should be free to do as he pleased, surrendering nothing of his rights, as 
he conceived them, to the government. He refused to pay his poll-tax, 
and went to jail. A friend paid it for him, and he accepted the benefit, 
but without gratitude or repayment. 

It is not easy to understand why, after stickling upon a point of con- 
science to the extent of submitting to imprisonment, he should have ac- 
cepted the benefit of another's payment of the iniquitous demand of the 
State. His logic, carried to its necessary conclusion, required him to 
remain in jail until the State confessed itself in error and released him. 
If the payment of the tax was wrong, he had no right to accept benefit 
from it when made by another. It was at best a poor compromise. In 
this, as in other of his paradoxical performances, a certain limitation is 
discoverable. He stops short of the conclusion. As the vulgar saying 
goes, there is "more bark than bite." 

Mr. Lowell comments upon the fact that when he had abjured civili- 
zation and determined to have no other companions than the blue-jays 
and muskrats of Walden Pond, his first act was to borrow Bronson Al- 
cott's axe, a civilized implement from a civilized man, to build a civil- 
ized abode. There is certainly a degree of inconsistency in seeking 
primeval solitude and simplicity, with a sharp Yankee axe on one shoul- 
der and the Bhagavad Gita under the other arm. Why did he not dis- 
card his factory-made dress, clothe himself in skins, if at all, make his 
own axe of stone, build a wigwam like his ideal, the red man, or burrow like 
his ancestors of the stone age and his neighbors, the muskrats? Mr. 



208 THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 

Lowell, whose sketch of Thoreau is very happily written, notes that 
civilization was very near to Walden, and that Thoreau could easily fall 
back upon it in an emergency. 

Thoreau was in the habit of declaring a preference for the society 
of naked Indians and wild beasts, and he did go away and live for a while 
in a snug shanty by Walden Pond, engaged in such aboriginal pursuits 
as writing books, and the study of Hindu Metaphysics. In a few years, 
however, he was again living in town, accepting all the disadvantages 
of civilization, though still inveighing against them. He was writing 
books, and printing them, sending Greeley manuscript after manuscript, 
borrowing seventy-five dollars from him, and repaying it with the most 
scrupulous exactitude. 

Why should this defiantly eccentric person, who declares that he 
would not go around the corner to see the world blow up, care to write 
books to be read by the 'Vulgar crowd" of men and women, as he called 
them .? Perhaps it was from sheer love of lecturing. He did not believe 
in missionaries; his shibboleth was "every man to his own affair." He 
was not writing in order to do good to others. What happened to others 
could in no wise affect or interest one so thoroughly apart from the rest 
of mankind. Yet we have from his pen ten fat duodecimos, with a mass 
of note-books remaining whose contents have not yet been exploited. 
In due time, no doubt, we shall have more volumes, preceded by loud 
trumpetings of praise. 

Apropos of his intense and defiant individualism, it is strange that 
his biographers and critics have paid so little attention to his profession 
and practice of Buddhism. There is very good ground for beHeving 
that the Walden episode was not more a result of temperament, or of a 
desire to be conspicuous by being odd, or of a disinterested purpose 
to set the world a good example, than an attempt to put into practice 
somewhat of the Hindu philosophy to which he was intensely devoted. 
Whether this is attributing too much, or too direct an influence to his 
oriental studies or not, it is possible to trace a vein of Buddhism all 
through his life and writings. In the Walden retirement it crops out 
strongly. 

In the "Week," he writes: "The reading which I Hke best is the 
scriptures of the several nations, though it happens I am better acquainted 
with those of the Hindus, the Chinese, and the Persians, than of the 
Hebrews, which I have come to last." Again he says: "I know that 



THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 209 

some will have hard thoughts of me, when they hear their Christ named 
beside my Buddha, yet I am sure I am willing they should love their 
Christ more than my Buddha, for love is the main thing, and I like him too." 
Referring to his diet at Walden, he declares that he thought it fit that he 
should live mainly on rice, because he loved so well the philosophy of India. 
Horace Greeley, writing to Thoreau, refers to *'your genial pantheism." 
This pantheism, with great certainty, was a result of his study of "Hindu 
Scriptures." The Brahmin, with his belief in emanation and absorp- 
tion, as the origin and end of all things, and his doctrine of metempsychosis 
is not more scrupulous in his regard for all forms of animated existence 
than was Thoreau. Says Emerson: **Though a naturalist, he used 
neither trap nor gun." Once he killed and ate a woodchuck, but repented 
it long and sorely. 

Buddhism is a philosophy of selfishness. Each man must see to his 
own salvation, regardless of the fortune of others. To the Buddhist 
self-culture embraces all the duties of life. Not the Christian self-culture, 
which is a means to unselfish ends, but a selfish culture, which is, itself, 
the only end worth seeking. In this way he hopes to attain Nirvana, 
which every man must reach if, at all, by his own efforts, having no regard 
for others, as they must have none for him. It is not important to deter- 
mine whether Thoreau believed in Nirvana or not. In many other re- 
spects his Buddhism is plainly visible. The Buddhist, seeking to attain 
serenity by modification of his inner nature, wrought by his own unaided 
efforts, is commanded to forsake parents, wife, children, friends, country, 
and live by himself and for himself alone. Hear now our Walden Budd- 
hist say: "Probably I should not consciously and deliberately forsake 
my particular calling to do the good which society demands of me — to 
save the universe from annihilation." Siddhartha declared that the life of 
a recluse was most favorable to serenity. He encouraged asceticism and 
condemned marriage. A lonely life in the forest, he said, was best adapted 
to that self-conquest which comprised every duty of life. Is it to be doubted 
that Thoreau, seated in his lonely hut in the forest by Walden Pond, eating 
his scanty rations of rice, apart from family and friends, refusing obedi- 
ence to the law, virtually abjuring his country, not willing to "go round 
the corner to see the world blow up," nor to surrender his selfish pur- 
poses to "save the universe from annihilation," was practising or believed 
that he was practising the teachings of his Buddha ? 

In a general way his eccentricities of opinion and conduct were parts 

14 



210 THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 

of the New England reformation. We are not surprised by anything 
said or done in this extraordinary period, when a man as large-minded 
as Ripley undertook, in serious mood, the conduct of Brook Farm, and 
when, for a time, the calm, strong genius of Hawthorne yielded to the 
vagaries of Fourier. But the qualities of the men clearly appear in their 
conduct. Hawthorne speedily shook off his illusions and became the 
trenchant, almost unkind satirist of the movement in which he had for 
the moment joined. Emerson, who had given Thoreau his impulse to 
the study of oriental literature and philosophy, and had been, in many 
other things, his inspirer and teacher, never lost his balance. He neither 
joined any impracticable community, nor refused to associate with his 
fellow men. As much a humanist and philanthropist as Ripley, as much 
an orientalist as Thoreau, his well-balanced mind perceived the necessity 
of making the most of life as it was. It was plain to him that he could 
do no good by living in the woods, and accomplish no good purpose by 
aiding Miss Fuller to milk her cows. With all its mistakes and extrava- 
gances, transcendentalism was productive of many excellent results. Of 
all its good qualities and products, Emerson was the embodiment. Of 
its vagaries, Thoreau affords an excellent illustration. Emerson was 
sound; Thoreau was not. 

It is said of Victor Hugo that he esteemed himself so highly that he 
regarded whatever pertained to him as of importance and interest to all 
mankind, and wrote odes to commemorate his headaches and toothaches. 
This form of egotism is essentially Gallic. Montaigne wrote four charm- 
ing volumes of gossip about himself. Rousseau, who believed that he 
had been cast in a peculiar mould, which had been at once destroyed, 
has handed down to posterity a carefully revised catalogue of his opin- 
ions and of the occurrences of his career, embracing in the latter depart- 
ment some of the most repulsive things that have ever been printed. 
Dumas followed his example. France is pre-eminently the land of pri- 
vate memoirs. People of other nations write memoirs only when they 
have matters of public importance or interest to relate. No one but a 
Frenchman thinks his toothache or his indigestion a subject of universal 
interest. No one but a Frenchman photographs himself naked for the 
edification of the rest of the world. 

Intellectually, Thoreau was closely related to these memoir writers. 
He has left us, however, nothing unclean. He was a chaste, clean man 
and writer, but he has written three thousand duodecimo pages of ego- 



THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 211 

tism. The world of his books revolves about himself as a sun. What- 
ever he did, said, or thought, must be put down in ink. Wherever he 
went the pubHc must follow, and if he stopped by the way the public 
must stop too, and hear what he had to say while he ate his lunch. If 
his shoe became untied in his walk, the operation of repairing the acci- 
dent was of sufficient importance to merit an accurate description, sup- 
plemented by the reflections suggested by the occurrence. He traveled 
in the Maine woods, inviting American readers to attend him, and, with 
infinitely wearisome minuteness, compelled their attention to all the 
stumps he sat upon and all the stones he chipped. These things were 
important because they had been related to him. His "Week on the 
Concord and Merrimack" is, perhaps, the least interesting of narra- 
tives, so far as incident is concerned. It is strongly and, in the main, 
gracefully written, and contains a vast deal of philosophizing upon sub- 
jects, ranging from the most commonplace to the most transcendental; 
very few of them perceptibly related in the remotest degree to the sub- 
ject of the book. These reflections, being his own, could not, of course, 
be omitted. His eyes were never off^ himself. As a writer, he was a per- 
sistent and chronic scold. Except thinking and writing about himself, 
he enjoyed nothing so much as lecturing others, treating them the while 
as if they were residents of the transcendental world, instead of citizens 
of an excessively practical Republic on the earth. 

He was opposed to government. Commerce was an evil; the best 
merchant was the one who lost most money. He would not go into 
trade for fear he might make money. Commerce with England was 
tolerable only because it had brought Carlyle's thoughts to America. 
He admired John Brown, Chakia Mouni, Carlyle, and himself. Per- 
haps there were others, whom I cannot now recall. He conceded good 
qualities to Webster, but blamed him because, having been chosen Sen- 
ator from Massachusetts, he did not shape his course as if he were a 
Senator from Utopia. Lowell refers to the fact that he complained that 
there was no one in Concord with whom he could discuss Hindu philos- 
ophy, when he was much of the time living in the family of Emerson, 
his master, who had introduced him to the study of it. Emerson ex- 
pressed the highest admiration for his perceptive faculty. Lowell says 
he acted as if others had no such faculty, and was continually discoursing 
about the most common phenomena, as if he were the only one who 
had ever seen the sun rise or set. 



212 THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 

It would not be fair to stop here in our analysis. It is hardly to be 
disputed that the peculiarities which have been referred to were, many of 
them, cultivated. They were artificial; conscious eccentricities. French 
blood craves effect. It must have attention. Frenchmen do not make 
good Buddhists or Stoics. The doctrines of Epictetus have never taken 
deep root in France. Thoreau wished to be, and to be considered, a 
Stoic and a Buddhist, superior to m.isfortune, suffering, affection, all the 
feelings and passions that move other men. He cultivated the quality of 
Stoicism assiduously, but without success. He could not change his nature. 
When he had been paid out of jail by the friend whom he did not 
thank, he went to the cobbler, and got his shoe, which he had left to be 
mended, and then joined a huckleberry party. In such expeditions 
he was a frequent and favorite leader. 

He was beloved of all children. In short, he was naturally a man 
of kindly, sympathetic disposition, and with all his orientalism and indi- 
vidualism in theory, he could not divest himself of a strong social instinct 
and a fine social capacity. Using the current phrase, he was "good 
company," and he liked company. Emerson says that he abandoned 
his solitude at Walden because he had exhausted its advantages. This 
is no doubt a part of the truth, but it is also clear that he had become 
tired of it. It will not do to say that he intended in the beginning to 
remain only temporarily. He was putting into practice his theory of 
life. In a sense, he was placing himself on exhibition as an example of 
**low living and high thinking." To show that one could live as he advo- 
cated for something over two years, did not prove his case. 

The Walden solitude and the Brook Farm Society alike failed. Tho- 
reau, it is said, had the double purpose of teaching right living and learn- 
ing the trade of authorship at Walden. In the first, if this was his pur- 
pose, he signally failed. He made himself conspicuous, but attracted 
neither following nor approval. Soon after he abandoned his hut, the 
performance having ended, it was put upon wheels by a neighboring 
farmer, and hauled off to be used as a corn-crib, in which capacity it is 
said to have done duty for many years. If Walden was a good place for 
writing books, why did not he stay there? He says he had as good a 
reason for coming away as he had for going there. No doubt he had 
a much better one. He had been trying a foolish experiment, and had 
discovered his folly. To say that he was compelled to go there in order to 
practice writing is absurd. Emerson and Hawthorne had no difficulty in 
learning the trade, or in carrying it on in Concord. 



THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 213 

It was impossible for Thoreau to live without society. Being by 
nature both a writer and a talker, having a well-stored mind, his com- 
fort and happiness depended upon having an outlet for his thought, an 
audience for his speech, a public to read his writings. He had some- 
thing to say and could not tell it to the loons, something to write and 
to print and the muskrats could not read it. He loved music, and the 
squirrels and the blue-jays did not furnish good quality. He loved chil- 
dren and his friends, and the mutual attraction was so strong that after 
a while he shut up his shanty, tacitly confessing his mistake, and returned 
to the world, from which he had never departed more than three miles, 
and ever afterward endured with serenity the multitude of social evils. 
Even now the world looks upon him in the light of his Walden esca- 
pade as a hermit, an ascetic, and a cynic. Undoubtedly his life was 
austere and abstemious, but in other respects this conception is erroneous. 

Upon this genial, kindly, and social nature were imperfectly grafted 
certain peculiarities, ' the results of his studies in oriental philosophy, 
and of the intense and often misguided intellectual and moral activity 
of the time in which he lived. Like most grafted fruit, the product was 
inferior. Looking beyond his eccentricities, we shall find much to approve 
and to admire. His idealism is of the loftiest kind. The morality of 
his books is in every respect and in the highest degree admirable. The 
fact that we cannot now put his moral precepts into practice does not 
prove them unsound in principle. We shall probably not be able to 
utilize them until the millenium; but this would be a sorry world indeed 
if none of us believed in or hoped for a better state of affairs than now 
exists, nor ventured to protest against present evils and demand their 
removal. 

Our slavery to money and trade, our dishonesty in business, our 
constant creation of artificial wants and waste of time in gratifying them, 
our worship of the material and neglect of the intellectual, the spiritual, 
the really excellent, these and all the shortcomings and evils of society 
were incessantly and trenchantly denounced. His leanings were all 
to the right. The intensity of his nature carried him to extremes, so 
that he was in no sense a practical reformer, but rather a prophet fore- 
telling a better state, a sentimentalist seeing things as they ought to 
be, not as they are. Perhaps this statement should be qualified, because 
when John Brown had been arrested Thoreau hastened to the Concord 
Lyceum to sound his praise. The managers objected, saying the time 



214 THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 

was not ripe, but our idealist had no such word as policy or expediency 
in his vocabulary. He had something to say, and intended to say it, 
and did say it. It made no difference to him whether affairs were ready 
or not. In this and in other ways he efficiently aided in the anti-slavery 
agitation. In the light of subsequent events his folly was better than 
the wisdom of the party managers. 

He was an ardent lover of nature, and the greater part of his time 
was devoted to ^'communion with her visible forms." He knew almost 
to the hour when every flowering thing in Concord township would bloom. 
He was on intimate terms with the natives of forest and stream. He 
would stand immovable for hours among the trees, and the squirrels and 
birds would come about him as if he were a part of the forest growth. 
In the same way he would stand in the shallows of the river until the fish 
would become accustomed to his presence and permit him to take them in his 
hands. He appears, however, to have been content to observe phenomena 
and to catalogue facts, so that, while he has left a valuable and inter- 
esting record of observations, he cannot be said to have contributed 
anything of special importance to science. 

In what estimation shall we hold such a man.? Is not the general 
impression one of weakness rather than of strength? Like Hamlet he 
found the "time out of joint.'* His efforts to set it right came to naught. 
He failed at Walden, and the faults of society, which he hated and de- 
nounced, grew every day greater before his eyes. Not only did he fail 
so far as others were concerned, but he must also have been conscious 
of his own errors of judgment and infirmity of will. His perception 
was faulty and his efforts misdirected. Emerson, the most ideal of 
transcendentalists, had a firm hold upon the real world, as well as the 
ideal world, and no American thinker or writer has, so powerfully as 
he, influenced his countrymen. It was in this respect that Thoreau 
was fatally lacking. He was wholly impracticable, and this necessarily 
implied mental limitation and inferiority. While Emerson made a visi- 
ble and lasting impress, Thoreau made none. The exaggeration, the 
paradox, the utter disregard of actual conditions which distinguished 
his utterances and his conduct, made it impossible for him to guide or 
control men. He was continually discounting himself. In very truth 
he had no capacity for leadership. He could not lead himself. 

While he lived he exerted no influence upon others. In his conduct 
there was nothing notable, inspiring, or heroic. In his books there is 



THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 215 

no body of doctrine, neither coherency, nor system. His personality 
is unique, eccentric, nothing more. Notwithstanding his exceptionally 
high qualities, intellectual and moral, it is not possible to pronounce 
him a great or even a strong man. If he has any claim to eminence, it 
must rest upon his literary achievements. It is true of him, as of other 
writers, that his character is manifest in his books. The first thing to 
be noted of these is that the basis of all of them is nature. Their names 
clearly indicate this: '^Excursions," "Summer," *'Walden," "Cape Cod," 
"Early Spring in Massachusetts," "The Maine Woods." 

When we get beyond the titles, we discover, however, that they treat 
not only of nature, but of every other thing which it has entered into the 
mind of man to conceive. One seeing for the first time the title, "A 
Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers" would naturally expect 
an account of a boating, fishing, and exploring trip. As a matter of 
fact, while the book does contain something of this kind, it includes a 
great deal more that has no more necessary connection with the Con- 
cord or the Merrimac, than with the man in the moon, or with Sanscrit 
roots. It is in this book that the author discourses most persistently upon 
Hindu and other philosophies. If you wish to know his opinions on 
friendship, love, poetry, literature, architecture and most other subjects 
they are to be found here. All this begets disappointment and exas- 
peration. If one wishes to learn Buddhism, or architecture, he naturally 
prefers books that professedly treat of them. It is hardly fair to tempt 
the lover of nature with such a title, to lure him off to the Concord or 
the Merrimac, and then inflict upon him interminable discourses upon 
dry and totally irrelevant topics, relieved here and there with verse which 
is indisputably bad. This objection will apply with almost equal force 
to "Walden," and in less degree to all his narrative works. There is 
something in "Walden" about Walden, but very much more about other 
things. This discursiveness, scrappiness detracts very materially from 
both the interest and the value of the books. Thoreau is never so enter- 
taining as when relating with stimulating enthusiasm the natural history 
of his native woods, and fields, and waters. We value him most as a chron- 
icler of these. We lack confidence in the extent and exactness of his 
knowledge and the soundness of his judgment in the matters of which 
he has so much to say so inopportunely. 

Now and then, in the "Week," he seizes his oar , and sends his boat 
with vigorous strokes spinning along. You catch the breeze, expand 



2l6 THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 

your lungs with the bracing air, and say to yourself, **this is pleasant, 
this is what I wished and expected;" but the thought has hardly passed 
before the oars again dip idly in the water, the breeze is lost, and the sun 
pours down, while the boatman forces into your unwilling ears such 
lines as these: 

^'Conscience is instinct bred in the house. 
Feeling and thinking propagate the sin 
By an unnatural breeding in and in. 
I say turn it out of doors 
Into the moors. 

I love a life whose plot is simple. 
And does not thicken with every pimple." 

This, by the way, is classified as poetry, and has something of a metrical 
form. Instead of breaking into poetry, it may be that he will say with 
earnest though fatiguing irrelevancy: "We can tolerate all philosophies. 
Atomists, Pneumatologists, Atheists, Theists, Plato, Aristo le, Leucip- 
pus, Democritus, Pythagoras, Zoroaster, and Confucius," etc. He has 
invited you to go boating, and this is what he gives you. The root of all 
this is egotism. No doubt he really believes that all he has to say is of 
interest and value to others. In many instances it is neither interesting 
nor valuable, and this method, or want of method, is fatal to him as a 
bookmaker He seems to be, as a writer, almost devoid of the sense 
of proportion and propriety. Perhaps he wilfully disregards both pro- 
portion and propriety. There is a place for everything. The natural 
history of Massachusetts has no affinity with Leucippus, and certainly 
there is no perceptible justification for essays on Solon and Chaucer in 
a book of New England travel. 

"The Week" and "Walden" might very well be published together 
with some such title as "The Miscellaneous and Inconsequential Opin- 
ions of Henry D. Thoreau upon a Variety of Subjects." 

The scrappiness of his books indicates a corresponding quality of 
mind. Believing in personal inspiration it is quite probable that he 
conceived it to be his duty to set down always the thought which came 
into his mind without regard for connection or relevancy, or the con- 
venience or approval of the reader. This hop, skip, and jump method 
of thinking and writing renders real enjoyment of his books impossible 



THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 21/ 

to all except kindred transcendental spirits, in whom sympathy is suffi- 
ciently developed to cover the multitude of his sins. This peculiarity 
may be an affectation, in which event it is beyond pardon, or it may 
result from incapacity for sustained effort. Probably both hypotheses are 
correct. The two books under consideration were published during his life, 
and are the best known of his longer productions. "Walden" is the 
more readable, and has always been the more popular. The name is 
happily chosen to stimulate curiosity, by reason of its reference to the 
episode by which Thoreau is most widely known. It is safe to say, 
however, that very few will read *'Walden" a second time, or go through 
it even once, without much vexation, mingled with occasional pleasure 
and unavoidable admiration of its excellent though varying literary quality. 
Who cares to read again a book which contains a little of everything, 
and not very much of anything, especially when it is undertaken as a 
volume of natural history and personal reminiscence and proves to be 
a volume of everything else ? 

Readers of natural history will not wade through long drawn chap- 
ters of philosophizing to find the facts they seek. Students of philos- 
ophy will not care to plant beans and dig roots with Thoreau. There 
is no class of readers to whom these books will, in their totality, be inter- 
esting. In the main, they are admirably written, but there are enough 
books with coherence and harmony of construction which are better writ- 
ten. Upon these books, Thoreau*s reputation as a prose writer mainly 
depends, and they are so composite, so discursive, and so incongruous 
in substance, that they cannot be popular even among the higher class 
of readers. To the general public they will be known hereafter, as they 
have been known heretofore, by name only. To no one have they any 
substantial value. They may possibly retain a certain notoriety as curiosi- 
ties of literature. 

The "Yankee in Canada," "The Maine Woods," and "Cape Cod," 
are more homogeneous and coherent. As a rule, however, the style 
is inferior to that of the "Week" and "Walden," and the interest purely 
local. The subject matter is of a kind to interest no one but the inhabitants 
of the regions to which they relate, and them, not very much. It would 
require a very exceptional literary excellence to make such books accept- 
able to the general reader, or any but the local reader. They contribute 
nothing to their author's popularity and do not commend him to the 
critics. 



2l8 THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 

Passing from the longer and more pretentious books to the essays 
and occasional pieces, we find some attractive material. The volume 
entitled "Excursions," contains, perhaps, the best of these. There 
are few pieces of descriptive writing in the language more beautiful than 
**A Winter Walk." I had the good fortune to make acquaintance with 
it on a winter afternoon, during one of the rare snow-falls of our South- 
ern latitude, and ever since it has possessed for me an irresistible charm. 
I have read it again, every winter since that time, and always with 
renewed pleasure. Thoreau says himself that books of natural history 
make the best winter reading, and I know of nothing more delightful 
than to read "A Winter Walk" on a snowy day. 

A few of the essays are critical and biographical and are of no spe- 
cial value. Thoreau's judgments of men and books were as fantastic 
as his opinions of government and conduct. The sketch of Carlyle is 
strongly written, but abounds in the most exaggerated transcendental- 
ism. It was composed in the first enthusiasm of early acquaintance, 
when Carlyle was an ardent idealist, not to say mystic. His idealism, 
and his extravagant vigor of phrase, were very pleasing to Thoreau, 
and exerted a powerful and lasting influence upon him. 

Ruskin seems not to have suited him so well. Rather a surprising 
fact, because, intellectually, there is in many respects a striking simi- 
larity between the two. Ruskin, however, was, if not an artist, a lover 
and an historian of art, while Thoreau loved or claimed to love, only 
nature. The "Seven Lamps of Architecture," he said, was made of good 
stuflF, but there was too much about art in it for him and the Hottentots. 
Probably Ruskin's later writings would have pleased him more. 
Other of the essays are " Civil Disobedience," " Slavery in Massa- 
chusetts," "Life without Principle," and "John Brown." None of 
these is in any way remarkable. They are, like most of his books, written 
in a vigorous but uneven style. This inequality of execution is a prin- 
cipal defect of all his books. Aside from the facts narrated, these essays 
are repetitions, with more or less modification, of the opinions and 
theories which we have found in "Walden," and the "Week." 

There remains to be noticed that part of his prose writing which is 
almost literally transcribed from his note books. The literary value of 
note books is necessarily inconsiderable. We are accustomed to be 
served with the finished product, not the raw material, and naturally 
prefer it. It is hardly possible for the ordinary reader to judge of such 



THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 219 

books, because it is well nigh impossible for him to read them. They 
may possess a strong local interest, they may be pleasant to the highly 
cultivated palates of the transcendental elect, but to the inferior and 
uninitiated orders of men and women, they are "flat, stale, and unprofit- 
able." Their publication is a manifestation of an extraordinary hero- 
worship, or of a determination to work up all the product of a profitable 
mine, no matter how inferior the remaining material may be. The 
literature of the world is no richer by their publication. They are parts 
of a set of books and increase the income of the publishers by their due 
proportion. The name of the author, having a market value, will sell 
them along with the others. Buyers, as a rule, will take the whole set. 
The more in the set, the larger the receipts. 

Thoreau seems to have entertained occasional aspirations to be a 
poet. Necessarily, because to the transcendentalists, to borrow their 
own high flying phrase, "Poetry was the only verity, contained the only 
reality." "The Week" is dotted all over with metrical outbursts. One of 
these has been quoted above. It was not selected as the worst, and is 
not the worst. The others are very much of the same quality. The 
transcendental poets, with their keener insight and their lofty disregard 
of mere form, did not confine the muse to the conventional tripping gait, 
but allowed her to go at will. A distressing unevenness was the frequent 
result. Dr. Holmes confesses that Emerson's poetry too often goes 
on unequal feet, and that he is guilty of extreme arbitrariness in some 
of his rhymes. For instance, in enforcing a concord of sound between 
"bear" and "woodpecker" and compelling the ultimate and penulti- 
mate syllables of the great Napoleon's name to rhyme with "noon." 
This inequality of construction and this independent style of rhyming 
were equally, or more, characteristic of Thoreau. It is said that he had 
the poet's soul, but not the poet's gift of song. The latter is certainly 
true, the former possibly so, but the world is unreasonable enough to 
demand the song before it concedes the title of poet. 

It is claimed for Thoreau, that if he had been born in one of "those 
fervid climates where the poets sing as naturally as the birds," he would 
have been a great poet. This may or may not be true. There is no 
harm in believing it, and nothing unreasonable in not believing it. Poets, 
even great poets, are not confined to fervid climates. Some of the great- 
est have come from the cold northlands. In America, the finest crop 
of them has sprung from the sterile soil and been nurtured in the "inhos- 



220 THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 

pitable climate" of Massachusetts. Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, 
Holmes, Lowell and Bryant were all of New England. Fervors of tem- 
perature were not necessary in their cases. It is a sufficient answer 
to say that Thoreau was not born in a "fervid cHmate," and 
was not a great poet. He was not even a poet of ordinary merit, and 
the assertion that he was not a poet at all, might be plausibly supported 
Arguments to the contrary would not be strongly re-enforced by citation 
of those portions of his writings which are not in prose form, and which 
are called poems. 

If Thoreau's claim to immortality rests upon his prose writings, it 
cannot be said that his title is clear. A book purporting to deal with a 
single subject should be a consistent and harmonious whole, and not 
composed of disconnected parts. Particularly at this time, when the 
tendency of everything is toward specialization, it is impossible for books 
of rambling disquisitions to be acceptable or valuable to any class of 
readers. 

In what department of knowledge, or of thought, shall we say that 
Thoreau was well founded or thorough .? What shall we say he did well ? 
He was an alert observer of nature, and possessed the faculty of record- 
ing his observations accurately and attractively. If he had been con- 
tent to confine himself to this work, for which he was so well adapted, 
the foundations of his fame should have been much more firmly laid; 
but in his fondness for paradox, his devotion to philosophical and mys- 
tical studies and discourse, he was constantly tempted from the road 
which he should have pursued, and instead of books of natural history 
and scenery, which might have ranked with the "Complete Angler," 
or the Natural History of Selborne, the best he has left are inharmoni- 
ous and ill-constructed composites. It is true, as Mr. Lowell says, that 
some of his sentences are as perfect as anything in our language, but it 
is equally true that his style lacks sustained excellence. As in his thought 
there is much which is to the purpose, with not a little which is not to 
the purpose, so as a rule in his writing a high degree of excellence con- 
stantly alternates with positive inferiority. 

It will not be claimed by his most ardent admirer that Thoreau*s 
books are at all calculated for popularity. It would be difficult to con- 
ceive themes or methods of treatment less popular, and there is no writer 
in the language who professedly held popularity in such slight esteem. 
His works are addressed to readers of the higher class, who resort to 



THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 221 

books with serious purpose, and to them their value must be exceedingly 
limited, by reason of their incompleteness and want of harmony and con- 
nection. Upon the whole, there seems to be no reason for concluding that 
Thoreau can maintain his present prominence among American writers, 
or that his place in literature, if permanent at all, will be a high one. 

To what, then, shall we attribute the apparent popularity which has 
attached to his books for the last decade or miOre.f* In the first place, 
we have begun to have a distinctly national literature, in the creation of 
which Thoreau and his contemporaries and associates, of the transcen- 
dental school, bore an important part. We are naturally interested in 
the beginnings of this literature, and grateful to those who founded it. 
Unquestionably Thoreau is entitled to high praise for his thorough- 
going Americanism. He was one of the first American writers to dis- 
cover that his own country and his own people afforded the materials 
for a literature. He was one of those of whom Emerson says: They 
found they were not compelled to go to Italy to find sunsets; the Ameri- 
can article was just as good. He was consciously as well as positively 
American, and in more than one place in his books vigorously denounced 
the spirit of imitation which characterized American writers of his time, 
depriving their work of all originality and real value. The transcen- 
dental school of writers is entitled to the larger part of the credit which 
attaches to the emancipation of our literature. Col. Higginson says 
that**the Dial was the first distinctively American literary enterprise," 
and to this brilliant but short-lived periodical Thoreau was a constant 
contributor, without any pecuniary compensation. 

Another cause of this multiplication of his books is the personality 
of Thoreau, which is the most unique in our literary annals. In his 
own time he was widely noted for his refusal to pay taxes and his hermit 
life at Walden, and to the majority, even of his countrymen, he is still 
known only by these episodes. This quaint personality is behind all 
his books, and is an invaluable aid to the publisher in selling them. 

To these causes we must add the friendliness and the great influence 
of his editors and biographers. His chief sponsor was Mr. Emerson, 
and no better fortune could have befallen an American author than an 
introduction under such auspices. To Emerson the editing of Tho- 
reau's books was a labor of love, but it was impossible for him to conceal 
his apprehension that the public might not be able to perceive the excel- 
lence of the material which he was presenting. For instance, he has 



222 THOREAU, THE NATURE-LOVER 

been to the trouble of going through Thoreau's works and collecting 
a large number of disconnected, strong sentences which in his judgment 
prove that the author possessed the literary faculty. This implies an 
admission that there is more chaff than wheat. But however diffidently 
he may have presented the books to his countrymen, his indorsement 
was sufficient. Perhaps Mr. Sanborn should be called a second indorser. 
After these all their friends and followers signed their approval, and 
so all the weight of New England culture has been sympathetically cast 
upon the side of Thoreau. Books so handsomely bound and so highly 
indorsed could not have failed to sell. That such an indorsement is 
of great value and not to be lightly treated is admitted, but it partakes 
somewhat of the nature of an accommodation indorsement by personal 
friends. It has always seemed as if there were a desire upon the part 
of his New England friends to have the public believe of Thoreau what 
they themselves wished to believe, namely, that he was a great writer 
and thinker. The right of dissent from their expressed judgment is 
not to be denied, and the dissent ought to be judged solely by the facts 
and the argument. 

As our literature grows in quantity and improves in quality these 
books, despite their fitful and uncertain brilliancy, must necessarily 
recede more and more from the public view. We should hold their au- 
thor in high esteem for his sterling personal worth, his patriotism, and 
the valuable assistance which he gave to the establishment of a genuinely 
American literature; but we should not allow our gratitude and affec- 
tion to blind our eyes to his weaknesses as a man, or his limitations as 
a thinker and writer. 




LITERATURE AND LIFE OF A PEOPLE.* 

T was in the year 1820 that Sidney Smith made himself odious 
to Americans by his famous question: "In the four quarters of 
the globe, who reads an American book, or goes to an American 
play, or looks at an American picture or statue?" This was the 
year in which Irving published the "Sketch Book," and one year before the 
appearance of Cooper's "Spy." Not far from this time the "Edinburgh 
Review" had this to say of Irving, who was then the foremost American 
writer: ^'He gasped for British popularity, he came and found it. He 
was received, caressed, applauded; natural politeness owed him some re- 
turn, for he imitated, admired and deferred to us . . . It was plain that 
he thought of nothing else, and was ready to sacrifice everything to obtain 
a smile or a look of admiration." Kit North more kindly said of Irving: 
"His later books are beautiful, but they are English." 

Some years later Thoreau wrote: "We are, as it were, but colonies. 
True, we have declared our independence and gained our liberty, but we 
have dissolved only the political bonds that connected us with Great 
Britain. Though we have rejected her tea, she still supplies us with food 
for the mind. The aspirant for fame must breathe the atmosphere of 
foreign parts, and learn to talk about things which the home-bred student 
never dreamed of, if he would have his talents appreciated, or his opinions 
regarded by his countrymen." 

Theodore Parker said: "American literature was exotic, and the 
native literature was rowdy, consisting mainly of campaign squibs, coarse 
satire, and frontier jokes. Children were reared on Miss Edgeworth and 
Mrs. Trimmer, whose books, otherwise excellent, were unconsciously satu- 
rated with social conventionalism and distinctions foreign to our society." 

These quotations present the fact of our intellectual dependence upon 
England, throughout at least the first quarter of the last century. The 
causes of this are obvious, and by no means discreditable, but it is inter- 
esting and in keeping with my present purpose to inquire how we have 
achieved such comparative independence as we have since enjoyed. For 
many years, indeed for more than two centuries, all our energies were de- 
manded by the tremendous task of subduing this great continent. Beginning 
on the Atlantic coast, we fought our way across the Alleghanies, across the 
Mississippi, and thence to the Pacific. Now we have completed the humane 

* An Address, A. D., 1900. ( aa3 ) 



224 LITERATURE AND LIFE OF A PEOPLE 

undertaking of dispossessing the Indians, we have killed the last bison, and 
have laid our railways and set our telephones in every part of our splendid 
domain. This struggle against the Indian, and against material forces, and 
our English origin, were not the only causes of our intellectual secondariness. 
It is true that we are mainly of Anglo-Saxon origin, and it is also true, as 
Roosevelt declares, that as early as the Revolution there was a race of men 
distinctly American. The two things most necessary to intellectual 
growth and to the development of literature, art, scholarship, are leisure, 
which implies financial independence, and a community of sentiment, a 
distinct body of thought to be expressed. 

The literature of a people is its thought precipitated, crystalized. Be- 
fore there can be a Hterature, there must be a people thinking independently. 
Before we can have an American literature we must have an American 
sentiment. It is important to remember that while this country has re- 
ceived from the first a constant stream of immigration, it is in recent years 
that the stream has risen to its greatest height and become most corrupted. 
In the earlier days of the republic the number of immigrants was compara- 
tively small. So far as homogeneity of population, which begets community 
of sentiment, was concerned, conditions were more favorable in the early part 
of the last century than afterwards. But in every part of the country save 
one, the people have been absorbed until now, incessantly in the struggle 
for existence. The exception was New England. Sixty years ago New 
England was already an old, populous, and rich community, and its popu- 
lation was at that time homogeneous. In addition to these things, her 
people, from the first, had been devoted to education more than those of 
the Middle and the Southern States, so that in New England the average 
of culture was much higher than elsewhere in America. The South and 
West were but sparsely settled, and the intellect of the South from necessity 
was directed towards politics, and not towards literature or scholarship. 
About the end of the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century there was 
a widespread intellectual and moral awakening in Europe, marked by a 
distinct revival of idealism. New England was the only part of America 
where conditions were favorable to the reception of this impulse. Hence, 
broadly speaking, arose the New England revival of letters, which many 
call the transcendental movement. 

To assign a precise date of beginning is impossible. Colonel Higginson 
says that: "About the year 1836, a number of young people in America 
made the discovery that, in whatever quarter of the globe they happened to 



LITERATURE AND LIFE OF A PEOPLE 225 

be, it was possible for them to take a look at the stars for themselves." In- 
comparably the finest expression of the spirit of the movement vv^as Emer- 
son's address on the "American scholar," delivered in 1837. Among 
other things, he said: *' Perhaps the time has already come, . . . . 
when the sluggard intellect of this continent will look from under its iron 
lids and fill the postponed expectation of the world with something better 
than the exertions of mechanical skill. Our day of dependence, and long 
apprenticeship to the learning of other lands draws to a close. The multi- 
tudes around us that are rushing into life cannot always be fed on the sere 
remains of foreign harvests. Events, actions, arise that must be sung, that 
will sing themselves." Lowell says: "We were socially and intellectually 
moored to English thought, till Emerson cut the cable." The transcen- 
dental movement was in efl?ect a declaration of intellectual independence. 
But, after all, the revolt was virtually confined to New England. The 
distinctively and consciously American literature that resulted was almost 
entirely New England literature. It was produced by Emerson, Long- 
fellow, Bryant, Whittier, Lowell, Thoreau, Motley, Prescott, Bancroft, 
Hawthorne, Parkman, Mrs. Stowe. 

This literature and the intellectual impulse which it voiced originated 
before the era of increased immigration, and the great westward movement 
and dispersion of population. An inevitable result of the furious struggle 
for wealth, and of the influx of inferior population, from which New Eng- 
land suffered in common with the remainder of the country, from about the 
year 1850, was a lowering of intellectual and moral levels. But this was 
not the only cause, perhaps not the principal cause, of the cessation or sub- 
sidence of the transcendental movement. Doubtless its own excesses and 
extravagances had something to do with it, but the westward movement 
had more. Of the fifteen or sixteen millions of the descendants of the 
Puritans, comparatively few remain in New England. The body of the 
New England population, and of New England thought, was no longer 
compact, but diflPused over all the North and Northwest. But now the 
West is conquered. We have possessed the land from the Atlantic to the 
summer seas, and there are signs of a refluent current of population east- 
ward. We have outgrown our prejudices and our sectional politics, and 
our war against a foreign foe caused a revival of fraternity and patriotism. 
It does not need a gift of prophesy to foretell what must follow. We shall 
have, we are having already, another revival of learning, another movement 
forward in intellect and in morals, but it is national and not sectional or 

16 



226 LITERATURE AND LIFE OF A PEOPLE 

local. In every State of the Union historical investigation is enthusiasti- 
cally pursued. Tremendous summer schools attest and promote a perva- 
sive and resistless enthusiasm for education. Every section teems with 
writers of more or less merit, and there is abounding evidence of a general 
intellectual and literary awakening. We are on the eve of a national tran- 
scendental movem.ent. 

We behold then a great nation, a republic, surpassing in actual and 
tried institutions the ideals and dreams of the lovers of liberty and mankind 
in former ages; possessing a domain of unequalled extent and richness, 
with a population drawn from every family of Christian men, but domi- 
nated by the race which has accomplished the greatest and the most benefi- 
cent results in modern times. Opportunity and promise of all high things 
irradiate our future. 

From these large generalizations let us descend to a few particulars. 

In literature there was a few years ago a serious threat of degeneracy. 
It has been true, always, that really meritorious writers of this country 
have been clean. The danger arose mainly from an inordinate increase of 
fiction. Among the thousands of living American writers, we have at most, 
three or four poets worthy of the name. Imaginative writing has 
taken almost exclusively the form of prose fiction. The novelists say that 
this is the dominant and the final form of literary expression. For three 
hundred years we have been writing novels. The EngHsh novel has been 
chaste; but even so clean and reputable a writer as Thackeray chafed 
under the salutary restrictions imposed by English taste and decency. As 
novels multiplied it became difficult to find new subjects, or even new 
treatments. This caused entirely respectable novel writers, over-esti- 
mating the importance of their calling and of themselves to clamor for 
what they called the *'French freedom." Two other kindred causes con- 
curred to strengthen the sentiment. Our foreign population being com- 
paratively inferior, intellectually and morally, and imperfect education 
being one of our national misfortunes, a general lowering of standards 
made it possible for many producers of literary trash to market their 
wares. And so we had an excessive demand for fiction, and a large inferior 
reading public tolerating inferior and unclean books. Most dangerous 
was the influence of the French realistic and erotic novelists. 

I think also that the Tolstoi furore had much to do with the sudden out- 
pouring of filthy books in this country ten or fifteen years ago. At all 



LITERATURE AND LIFE OF A PEOPLE 227 

events the abomination existed, and even now our news stands glare with 
the gaudy covers of French reprints, and worse, American imitations. 
The Latins are capable of a refined decency, but the indecency of the 
Saxon is always gross and intolerable. Products of this condition were 
many, but not worthy of mention. Decent men protested, but the fictionists 
cried in return: "Art!" They quoted Goethe as saying that art must be 
esteemed for art's sake only. They declared that the French did such 
things best, that ignorance was not innocence, and much more of the same 
sort. The unclean writers make, or pretend to make, a fetich of art. They 
affirm that the one thing most desirable is candor. A desire for candor 
incited Thackeray to a threat of rebellion, and later induced Thomas 
Hardy, one of the foremost contemporary novelists, to write some hun- 
dreds of pages of repulsive Anglo-Saxon imitation of the French. No 
sooner had Mr. Hardy manifested his wiUingness to be grossly sensational 
and imitative than the critics opened a grand chorus of praise. Mr. 
Hardy had declared for art, and had risen to candor. At once he became 
the rival of the illustrious esoteric, obscurely profound, and unspeakably 
tiresome nominee of the critics for the first place in contemporary fiction, 
George Meredith. The magnificent paradox of declaring pure a heroine 
who manifested the most pitiable .weakness and a persistent impurity 
aroused the makers of cheap fiction, and many critics to a frenzy of appro- 
bation. At last the English novel had declared its independence of the 
school misses, and we were to have Balzacs and Zolas of our own. 

An apparently strong sentiment in America welcomed the new 
dispensation; but while we have had no Jeremy Collier, as they had 
in England at the time of the Restoration, the common sense of the 
people seems to have prevailed. We do not wish our sons and 
daughters to associate in actual life with roues and courtesans, and we 
would deny them the more intimate association with these classes in books. 
If novels were addressed only to the elect, the novelists and the critics, 
we might have less reason to demand that they be clean and wholesome; 
but they reach all classes. The young people of this country are probably 
the largest consumers of fiction in the world. Therefore, if we are to have 
French candor we may confidently expect Parisian morals. Indeed, as 
life makes literature, we must have the morals before we can have the candor. 
If we must follow Mr. Hardy in his later ventures, we should first institute 
schools for the promotion of immorality, morbid sentimentalism, and absurd- 
ity. I am very much inclined to the belief, despite the critics, that ignorance 



228 LITERATURE AND LIFE OF A PEOPLE 

is innocence. I find the sophistication of the Greeks associated with un- 
speakable immoralities, and fail to see wherein Babylonian morals were 
improved by the general knowledge of subjects that we forbid. The 
decadence of the Roman Empire was conspicuous for candor, and the 
courts of Louis XIV., Louis XV., and Charles IL, were models of candor 
and sophistication. Paris, from which New York and Chicago import so 
many improvements in the vices, is a very Pharos of candor. 

For my part, I unblushingly place myself among the unprogressives, the 
reactionaries, the unenlightened, who refuse to bow down to the god. Art. I 
would not stultify myself by attempting to disparage art, but I place morals, 
religion, above art, and affirm that the aims of art, and of everything else, 
should be moral. Moreover, I deny that unchastity furnishes the highest 
opportunities for art. The critics and the novelists bow themselves to the 
earth when the mighty name of Balzac is sounded. Because the French writer 
revels in immoralities and indecencies whenever he chooses to do so, he is the 
incomparable, unapproached exponent of human nature. I agree with John 
Ruskin that the finest and deepest insight into human nature manifest in 
literature is in Shakespeare's plays, and the next in Walter Scott's novels of 
modern Scotch life. I do not admit that Balzac, whose genius all men 
admire, wrote anything superior to the "Antiquary," ''Guy Mannering," 
"Waverly," "Rob Roy" or "The Heart of Midlothian." I do not believe 
that Balzac had a finer genius or was a greater novelist than Scott, or 
Thackeray, or George Eliot. No language furnishes a novel that in pure 
artistic merit approaches Thackeray's "Henry Esmond." I hail with delight 
the abounding evidences of reaction from the morbid sentimentalism, which 
appeared a few years ago, and am happy in the belief that this country of 
homes, of honorable men and pure women, will have a clean and chaste 
literature; that it will neither be Cyprian, Babylonian nor Parisian. 

In poetry the end of the century tendencies have not yet entirely pre- 
vailed. There are many who persist in admiring Homer, Shakespeare, 
Dante, Chaucer, and so abject a slave of rhyme and meter as Robert 
Burns, even in an age illuminated and glorified by the transcendent genius 
of Whitman. It may be that in the golden future of poetry and of art, 
whose advent is so enthusiastically proclaimed, we shall reach and grasp 
the final and crowning conception that the chief end of poetry is 
obscurity without rhyme or meter, but I am of the deplorable 
company of the unilluminated who grope, as yet, in outer darkness. 
It may be that we are confused by the blinding radiance of the new 



LITERATURE AND LIFE OF A PEOPLE 229 

lights of belief and of criticism which burst upon us from many quarters; 
but, holding our minds ever open to "new influxes of light and power" and 
doing our best in the places in which our duty falls, we may hope that in the end 
we too may see the truth in its glory and beauty; or, if not, we must be con- 
tent to have done our best without envy of our brothers and sisters who, 
more gifted or better fated than we, shall be numbered among the elect. 
A most encouraging fact is the unmistakable reaction from a hasty and 
shallow skepticism. Men of my age came into active life in the midst of 
the materiahst movement. Without attempting to go far into this tre- 
mendous subject, I beg to offer a few suggestions : 

Beyond question the man who most profoundly influenced the thought 
of the second and third quarters of the last century was Charles Darwin. 
After him came a host of disciples. The new discoveries, the new theories, 
quickly mastered the greater part of the scientific world. The utter and 
irremediable confounding of Christianity was clearly at hand. If the 
doctrine of natural selection were true, and Darwin had proved it true, 
then Christianity had no standing ground. Well do I remember that in 
my college days Darwinism and materialism were the fashion, more par- 
ticularly among those who knew least about them. We discussed natural 
selection and the origin of the universe, bestowing special favor upon the 
nebular hypothesis, which admitted much nebulous knowledge. We read 
Huxley some, and Tyndall more; we marvelled at, and many times mouthed 
that daring declaration in Tyndall's Belfast address: *T behold in matter 
the promise and the potency of every form and quality of life." 

Herbert Spencer's monumental work had not then progressed far, but 
we got the ''First Principles," and some of us read it, or part of it, and 
filled our conversations and orations with its ponderous words and phrases: 
''Evolution, integration, concomitant, disintegration, homogeneity, and 
heterogeneity." Some fell upon Harriet Martineau's abridgement of the 
"Positive Philosophy," and burdened themselves with its massive ter- 
minology, its "social statics and dynamics." But there were two other 
writers who were easily first and second favorites. The lesser favorite 
was Buckle, the greater John W. Draper. In my day in college Draper's 
charmingly written one-sided books, with their bold assertion of infalli- 
bility, were tremendous makers of quick and defiant opinion. Many 
of us were obstreperously skeptical and magnificently intolerant of the 
eff^ete superstitions of the Church and of the childish absurdities of the Bible. 
Twenty-five years ago the universities were turning out almost nothing 



230 LITERATURE AND LIFE OF A PEOPLE 

but agnostics and materialists. But now things are changed. There is 
hardly a Church in America that is not more prosperous, active and aggres- 
sive than ever before. There is a widespread and positive reaction, a re- 
jection of the half truths that were at first readily accepted and confidently 
declared to be final. A majority of the young gentlemen in the colleges 
are now tolerant of the Deity. That we grossly overvalued the assertions 
and dogmas of the materialists and evolutionists is clear. 

Omitting for want of time much that I would be glad to say, I ask your 
attention for a moment to our own section of the United States. The 
Spanish War removed many of the difficulties and misunderstandings from 
which the South had suffered, but in some respects the relief may be only 
temporary. Sectionalism cannot survive recent events, but a patriotic 
renaissance is not a political and social panacea. We have com- 
plained that our northern neighbors have not understood us. Proba- 
bly a difficulty not less serious is that we have not understood ourselves. 
Prevented by many causes from having a literature of our own, we 
suffered long and fretted under the fact that the literature of the North 
was unfriendly to us. When we began to write about ourselves, after the 
Civil War, it was in a spirit of self-commiseration and self-laudation. Natu- 
rally enough and truly enough, we glorified the gallant soldiers of the Con- 
federacy, regretted our lost wealth, and sighed for our vanished old-time 
civilization. Our own writings asserted for us perfection and martyrdom. 
The North was unsympathetic, harshly critical, and wrote and bought 
nearly all the books, and presently we began to be critical of ourselves. A 
few of us, to please the North, and to win popularity for our books, others 
from honest conviction, began to say uncomplimentary things about the 
South of the past and of the present. It was demonstrated then that our 
nerves had not recovered their tone. We could not endure the mildest 
criticism. Frequently we were intolerant of the indisputable truth. We 
manifested in higher degree a resentment like that which was aroused in 
this country when Dickens exaggerated our newness, our roughness, and 
our expectoration. 

The truth is that the writers. North and South, have been extremists. 
Sentiment is prone to excess, and the critical faculty is hard to keep within 
bounds, being an unruly capacity and generally accompanying a combative 
and persistent temperament. The advice given the temporary but aspiring 
young driver of Appollo's chariot is suited to the case: *Tn medio tutissimus 
ibis.'* Senator Lodge represents one extreme when he makes old Virginia 



LITERATURE AND LIFE OF A PEOPLE 23 1 

the dreary and slovenly abode of indolence, horse-racing, wine-bibbing, 
and cock-fighting. Equally one-sided are many of our Southern writers, 
who see nothing of the horsy, gambling, deep-drinking planters that absorb 
Mr. Lodge's attention, or of anything else unpleasant, but only the Bever- 
leys, the Birds, the Tuckers, and the Lees; fine ladies and fine gentlemen; 
gallants in flowing wigs and spreading ruffles, patrician dames and dainty 
damosels rustling in silks, rigid in brocades, broad-hooped, stately and 
imposing, walking minuets. From our point of view only the good was 
visible. We idealized the South. Because a few hundred cavaliers, a 
sprinkling, came to this country after the death of Charles L, sometimes 
called King Charles, the martyr, we said much of cavalier blood and chivalry. 
There were cavaliers, many of them in the old South, knightly, gallant, 
noble gentlemen. In the main the Southern people were, even in Vir- 
ginia, plain, honest, patriotic, middle class folk. The cavalier element 
was concentrated largely in Virginia, and the essentially democratic so- 
ciety of that commonwealth exhibited certain aristocratic and necessarily 
temporary features. Virginia was the foremost of the Southern Colo- 
nies, and was long the foremost Southern State. From Virginia 
a greater part of the settlers of the Southwest were drawn. Virginia 
institutions were set up first and persist still in all the Southern 
States except Louisiana. The South was from the first mainly Virginian, 
that is English. This is hardly less true ethnically than politically. Next 
to England herself the Southern States are the most Anglo-Saxon part 
of the earth. The South has experienced almost none of the inevitably 
bad results that followed indiscriminate immigration. She is, as she 
ought to be, conservative. 

Let us not be in great haste to develop. Why not patiently await 
natural growth, instead of incessantly bidding for immigration. TJie 
natural attractions of the South will draw in due time the best class of 
immigrants and insure a sound and normal development. We receive 
many excellent people from the North and from the West as it is. In due 
time we shall certainly see the cotton factories beside the cotton fields, and 
the iron furnaces beside the iron mines and the coal mines. The myriad 
streams that now flow unchecked to the sea will furnish water power to 
countless manufactories. The steady labor of the South will attract capital, 
and the mild winters will never stop the mill wheels. 

I am fond of using certain sayings of Charles Dudley Warner in regard 
to the South. One of them is as follows: "Will it not be strange, said a 



232 LITERATURE AND LIFE OF A PEOPLE 

distinguished Biblical scholar, and an old time anti-slave radical, if we 
have to depend after all upon the orthodox conservatism of the South? 
For it is to be noted that the Southern pulpit holds still the traditions of 
the old theology, and the mass of Southern Christians are still undisturbed 

by doubts There remains a great mass of 

sound and simple faith." 

There are so many new things now that one longs for something old. 
But after all, if we could only see it, many of these new things, especially 
in the world of thought and of letters, are really old things, tricked out in 
new and often fantastic vestments. This oppressive newness, this univer- 
sal and insatiable progressiveness, has not yet pervaded the South, but 
numerous positive manifestations of it are to be found here. It is true 
that we have much of "sound and simple faith," but there are indications 
that we are entering upon a condition not unlike that of New England at 
the beginning of the transcendental movement, and for identical reasons. 
We are at the beginning of a transcendental movement of our own, in 
common with the remainder of the country. We are just awakening to 
active and independent intellectual and literary life. In our first flights 
we are unsteady and erratic. Some of my friends profess an aggressive 
socialism; others have become positivists; certain aesthetic and easy re- 
ligions have invaded, feebly, the once orthodox recesses of our mountains; 
theories of education of the most impossible character, and of the most 
formidable names, abound; there is a passion for writing for the news- 
papers, and otherwise getting into them, and a growing contempt for men 
on the part of women who can not get husbands; progress is the word of 
the time, and to the progressives, everything new is ipso facto good, and 
everything old is bad. These, however, are surface manifestations, dis- 
orders, always attendant upon the stage of intellectual expansion which we 
have reached. I can not refrain from quoting Lowell's account of the 
closely corresponding period in the New England revival of letters: 

^^Ecce nunc tempus acceptabile W3.s shouted on all hands, with every 
variety of emphasis, and by voices of every conceivable pitch, representing 
the three sexes of men, women and Lady Mary Wortley Montagues. 
The nameless eagle of the tree Ygdrasyl was about to set at last, and wild- 
eyed enthusiasts rushed from all sides to place under the mystic bird that 
chalk egg from which the new and fairer creation was to be hatched in due 
time. Every form of intellectual and physical dyspepsia brought forth its 
gospel. Bran had its prophets, and the pre-sartorial simplicity of Adam 



LITERATURE AND LIFE OF A PEOPLE 233 

its martyrs Plainness of speech was carried to a 

pitch that would have taken away the breath of George Fox; and even 
swearing had its evangelists who answered a simple inquiry about their 
health with an elaborate ingenuity of imprecation that might have been 
honorably mentioned by Marlborough in general orders. Everybody had 
a mission (with a capital M) to attend to everybody else's business. No 
brain but had its private maggot, which must have found pitiably short 
commons sometimes. Not a few impecunious zealots abjured the use of 
money (unless earned by other people), professing to live on the internal 
revenues of the spirit. Some had assurance of instant millennium, as soon 
as hooks and eyes should be substituted for buttons. Communities were 
established where everything was to be common but common sense. Men 
renounced their old gods, and hesitated only whether to bestow their fur- 
loughed allegiance on Thor or Budh It was the Pente- 
cost of Shinar. All stood ready at a moment's notice to reform every- 
thing except themselves." 

These delightful exaggerations, abounding in truth, apply to conditions 
that are now beginning to appear in many parts of the country, caused as 
in New England, by a new and unregulated intellectual activity. Let us 
hope that we shall profit by the experience of New England, and moderate 
the natural enthusiasm of reform. 



It so happens that we are with more or less justice held guilty of the two 
civic faults, which I shall call the most dramatic, furnishing the readiest 
and easiest material to the novelist and the declaimer, namely violence and 
illiteracy. I do not undertake here to discuss the subject of violence. 
I have believed always that with the growth of population, and with im- 
proved police service, crimes of violence will steadily decrease. The ap- 
parent increase of disorders of this class, in other sections of late years, 
appear to contradict this theory, but I can not accept these facts as a refu- 
tation. The statistics support the belief as applied to the South, and I am 
confident that its correctness will be demonstrated eventually. 

As to illiteracy we must accept the fact that the ratio is greater in the 
South than in the North. But we must not accept all the inferences, 
which are, generally speaking, that every other conceivable form of in- 
feriority accompanies illiteracy and attaches to illiterates and literates alike. 

I do not hesitate to affirm that the best and purest social conditions in 
this country to-day are to be found among the white people of the South. 



234 LITERATURE AND LIFE OF A PEOPLE 

Mr. Warner's phrase "orthodox conservatism" is not fanciful, it is true of 
religion and true of the general tone of society. I have not time to offer 
you the proofs, but for the present must content myself with asserting the 
fact. We are the American part of Americans, not of unmixed blood, but 
of the least mixed, and with many generations of American ancestry be- 
hind us. Probably I am not speaking to a man or woman whose family 
was not represented in the American revolution. We hear much said in 
praise of the old Southern civilization, in all of which I concur, but it is 
more to the purpose, and is perfectly true, to say that at this present time 
the standards and the practice of the civic and of the personal virtues are 
higher in the South than in any other part of the country; that upon an 
average we have the best men and the best women leading the purest and 
the least selfish lives. I say this taking into account the lowering of the 
levels that illiteracy must be allowed to produce. 

I believe also that there is more of contentment and of rational happi- 
ness here than elsewhere, although we are becoming infected with the great 
national vice, the inordinate desire for money. We have, here in the South, 
the largest body of genuinely American population and of genuinely 
American sentiment that exists to-day, that is to say, the largest body of 
sound and clean population and opinion in this hemisphere. 

I agree with the distinguished orator and educator who said here, that 
"to be sectional is to be absurd''; and I affirm that there is less of sectional 
feeling here than elsewhere, that the natural generosity of the Southern 
temperament is such that we were the first to outgrow the bitterness of 
civil strife. Such qualities in men as demand free institutions and such 
virtues as those institutions foster are logically and necessarily of highest 
development here, because we are, as a rule, descended from men who 
fought for and established our Hberties, whose faith and principles come to 
us as part of our very life, through five generations of American ancestors, 
and from whom we have the least diluted strain of Anglo-Saxon blood, 
and the purest Anglo-Saxon American traditions. 

Let us be then not narrow, provincial or sectional, but self-respecting 
and properly self-assertive, admitting our faults, but without cringing or 
subserviency. Let us stamp out illiteracy, and by our own efforts, by our 
own sacrifices, if necessary, not churlishly rejecting any aid that may be 
offered us, but relying on ourselves above all, knowing the certain fact 
that others can do but little, while we can do whatsoever we will, and 
must do whatever is needed. 



LITERATURE AND LIFE OF A PEOPLE 235 

Individual benevolence can amount to but little in practical aid. It may 
amount to much in sympathy and in stimulation, but it remains true that the 
work is ours, and is unavoidable, that the duty is ours and is imperative. 
I trust that what I have said contains no suggestion of boastfulness or 
sectional narrowness, nothing of recrimination or unkindness; but in any 
event we owe it to our patriotic and God-fearing fathers and mothers of 
the South to know and to declare that they have bequeathed to us the 
principles and the substance of a pure faith and of a free and high civility, 
and to ourselves to say that we are doing our best to be worthy of our heri- 
tage. 



AN EPIC OF THE KNOXVILLE BAR.* 

The battle's course was almost run, 
And Lindsay's fight seemed fairly won; 
John Houk had made his final play, 
And Lindsay too had had his say; 
The fateful hour was now at hand, 
Each side with anxious visage scanned 
The faces of the Statesmen great 
Whose fiat was to fix their fate. 

When up rose Webb of the Knoxville Bar 

For the closing act of the wordy war; 

His front was bold, his eye was bright, 

All flaming with the battle light; 

A soldier he of days of yore 

Under the flag that Forrest bore. 

High rang his voice and gave command 

That the Knoxville Bar should upright stand. 

That instant rose with courage bold 
Each Knoxville lawyer, young and old; 
Their Nestor grave was in the front 
As if to bear the battle's brunt; 
There Comfort too and Johnny Green 
On towering Washburn's flanks were seen; 
And Sammy Shields and Willy Wright 
Each, eager, straining for the fight; 
And Hugh McClung and fearless Carty 
Were likewise of the valiant party. 

And Sanford, too, and Tully R. 
Most handsome of a handsome bar; 
Another there, who did not stickle 
To face the foe, was Wesley Pickle. 
And Junius stood and Jimmie too. 
All ready each to dare and do. 

Thus did our bar itself align. 
When stood forth Webb with bold design, 
And spoke high words of solemn tone, 
And bade all speak, as though but one. 



'Describing; an incident attending the contest over the abolition of the Second Chancery Divi 
sion, wherein Hon. H. B. Lindsay was Chancellor, occurring^ before the Judiciary Committee at 
Nashville. ( a^^7 ) 



238 AN EPIC OF THE KNOXVILLE BAR 

"My friends," he said, "tell who you are, 
And then declare what you are for." 
With one accord, with aspect proud 
They cried in chorus sounding loud: 
We are, we are 
Of the Knoxville Bar; 
We are for Bart 
With all our heart." 

Then shone with pride their leader's face. 
And sprang he forward a single pace. 
As thus the bar declared its choice. 
Then clarion like, rang out his voice; 
"My comrades brave, speak out again. 
The cause of right still dare maintain. 
Say whether, then, for good or ill. 
Would be the passage of this bill." 

With one accord they loud replied. 
While the leader heard with kindling pride: 
"For ill, for ill 
Would work the bill, 
And do no good 

It surely would." 

The eagle eye of the leader blazed. 
And higher still his voice was raised; 
Sounded his words then loud and plain 
In every nook of old Tulane: 
"One more chorus now, dear friends. 
Ere this irksome warfare ends; 
Do we in Lindsay still believe. 
Or aught of wrong in him perceive.?" 

These words he spoke, nor silent they; 
In thundering words they quick obey. 
As on some wild and rugged shore 
The sounding waves of Ocean roar. 
So they in one sonorous cry 
Hurl back their loud and deep reply: 
"We do believe, 
Nor wrong perceive." 
"Enough, you braves," the leader said. 
And sought his seat with stately tread. 



AN EPIC OF THE KNOXVILLE BAR 239 

Thus Stood the gallant bar that day, 
And firm and fixed was their array, 
Within the walls of high Tulane, 
As Greeks on old Cunaxa's plain. 
Ne'er Hector did on Ilium's strand 
Behold a braver, nobler band; 
Nor PhiUip's son of Macedon 
E'er hurl such solid phalanx on; 
Nor Hellas stauncher patriots see 
At glorious Thermopylae; 
Nor Roman legions firmer stand, 
Than this embattled legal band. 

And, as for him who fearless led. 
And on his name bright luster shed, 
None since the days of Peleus' son 
Has deeds of nobler daring done; 
Nor ever yet did plumed knight 
Spur faster to the deadly fight. 

Oh, soldiers brave and chief subhme. 
Your names shall live till end of time — 
Shall, "penned by poets and by sages. 
Go sounding down through future ages." 



April, 1899. 




CALHOUN THE STATESMAN. 

In the 28th day of December, 1837, John C. Calhoun offered in 
the United States Senate the following resolution: 

I. That in the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the 
States adopting the same acted severally, as free, independent 
and sovereign States; and that each State by its own voluntary assent 
entered the Union with a view to its increased security against all dan- 
gers, domestic as well as foreign, and the more perfect and secure enjoy- 
ment of its advantages, natural, political and social. 

2. In delegating a portion of their powers to be exercised by the Fed- 
eral Government, the States retained severally the exclusive and sole 
right over their own domestic institutions and police to the full extent 
to which these powers were not thus delegated, and are alone respon- 
sible for them; and that any intermeddling of any one or more States, 
or a combination of their citizens, with the domestic institutions and 
police of the others, on any ground, political, moral or religious, or under 
any pretext whatsoever, with the view to their alteration or subversion, 
is not warranted by the Constitution, tending to endanger the domestic 
peace and tranquillity of the States interfered with, subversive of the 
objects for which the Constitution was formed and by necessary conse- 
quence, tending to weaken and destroy the Union itself. 

3. This Government was instituted and adopted by the several States 
of the Union as a common agent in order to carry into effect the powers 
which they had delegated by the Constitution for their mutual security 
and prosperity; and that in fulfillment of this high and sacred trust this 
Government is bound so to exercise its powers as not to interfere with 
the stability and security of the domestic institutions of the States that 
compose this Union, and that it is the solemn duty of the Government 
to resist, to the extent of its Constitutional power, all attempts by one 
portion of the Union, to use it as an instrument to attack the domestic 
institutions of another or to weaken or destroy such institutions. 

4. That domestic slavery as it exists in the Southern and Western 
States of this Union composes an important part of their domestic insti- 
tutions, inherited from their ancestors and existing at the adoption of 
the Constitution, by which it is recognized as constituting an important 
element in the apportionment of powers among the States, and that no 

16 { a4i ) 



242 CALHOUN THE STATESMAN 

change of opinion or feeling on the part of the other States of the Union 
in relation to it, can justify them or their citizens, in open and systematic 
attacks thereon with the view to its overthrow; and that all such attacks 
are in manifest violation of the mutual and solemn pledge to protect 
and defend each other, given by the States respectively, on entering into 
the Constitutional compact which formed the Union, and as such are 
a manifest breach of faith, and a violation of the most solemn obligations . 

5. That the interference by the citizens of any of the States, with 
the view to the abolition of slavery in this District, is endangering the 
rights and security of the people of the District; and that any act or 
measure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in this District would 
be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by the States of Virginia 
and Maryland; a just cause of alarm to the people of the slaveholding 
State, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger 
the Union; that any attempt of Congress to abolish slavery in any terri- 
tory of the United States in which it exists would create serious alarm 
and just apprehension in the States sustaining that domestic institution, 
would be a violation of good faith toward the inhabitants of any such 
territory who have been permitted to settle with and hold slaves therein, 
because the people of any such territory have not asked for the aboli- 
tion of slavery therein, and because when any such territory shall be 
admitted into the Union as a State the people thereof will be entitled 
to decide that question exclusively for themselves. 

These resolutions were all adopted by the Senate. The vote on the 
first one was 32 to 13, on the second 31 to 9, on the third 31 to 11, on 
the fourth 34 to 5, and on the fifth 36 to 8. Mr. Clay voted for them 
and Mr. Webster against them. (A. H. Stephens i, 398. et seq.) 

The opinion that the Constitution is a compact which is of mutual 
obligation and is apparently further supported by high authority, 
for on the 28th of June, 1851, at Capon Springs in Virginia, Mr. Web- 
ster said among other things: "I have not hesitated to say, and I repeat, 
that if the Northern States refuse, wilfully and deliberately, to carry into 
eflfect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugi- 
tive slaves and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer 
be bound to observe the compact. A bargain cannot be broken on one 
side and still bind the other." (Stephens i, p. 405.) 

I confess I cannot see why this last terse sentence of Webster's is 
not a happy and favorable summary of the Calhoun resolutions. In 



CALHOUN THE STATESMAN 243 

1833, however, Mr. Webster had opposed the Calhoun resolutions of 
that year which I shall quote presently, and which embodied the com- 
pact theory in slightly different form, but without change of substance. 
Alexander H. Stephens asserts, and in a measure proves, a modification 
of Mr. Webster's opinions between 1833 and 1 851. But we must not 
judge men by disconnected utterances, and I do not believe that Webster 
ever agreed with Calhoun as to the nature of the Constitution. 

The resolutions of 1837, which I have quoted above, were provoked 
by the slavery agitation, and are presented as the best summary, that 
I can find, of Mr. Calhoun's doctrine of States' rights as applied to the 
question of slavery under the Constitution. 

In 1833 Calhoun offered the following resolutions, which express 
the doctrine as applied to the tariff question and to the theory of nulli- 
fication, viz. : 

** Resolved, That the people of the several States composing these United 
States are united as parties to a constitutional compact, to which the 
people of each State acceded, as a separate sovereign community, each 
binding itself by its own particular ratification; and that the Union, of 
which the said compact is the bond, is a union between the States rati- 
fying the same. 

Resolved, That the people of the several States, thus united by the 
constitutional compact in forming that instrument, and in creating a 
general government to carry into effect the objects for which they were 
formed, delegated to that government for that purpose certain definite 
powers, to be exercised jointly, reserving, at the same time, each State 
to itself, the residuary mass of powers to be exercised by its own sepa- 
rate government, and that whenever the general government assumes 
the exercise of powers not delegated by the compact, its acts are unauthor- 
ized, and are of no effect; and that the same government is not made 
the final judge of the powers delegated to it, since that would make its 
discretion, and not the constitution, the measure of its powers; but that 
as in all other cases of compact among sovereign parties without any 
common judge, each has an equal right to judge tor itself, as well of the 
infraction as of the mode and measure of redress. 

Resolved, That the assertions that the people of the United States, 
taken collectively as individuals, are now or ever have been united on 
the principle of the social compact, and, as such, are now formed into 
one nation or people, or that they have ever been so united in any one 



244 CALHOUN THE STATESMAN 

Stage of their political existence; that the people of the several States 
composing the Union have not, as members thereof, retained their sov- 
ereignty; that the allegiance of their citizens has been transferred to the 
general government; that they have parted with the right of punishing 
treason through their respective State governments; and that they have 
not the right of judging in the last resort as to the extent of the powers 
reserved, and of consequence of those delegated — are not only without 
foundation in truth, but are contrary to the most certain and plain his- 
torical facts, and the clearest deductions of reason; and that all exercise 
of power on the part of the general government, or any of its departments 
claiming authority from such erroneous assumptions must of necessity 
be unconstitutional — must tend directly and inevitably to subvert the 
sovereignty of the States to destroy the federal character of the Union, 
and to rear on its ruins a consolidated government, without constitu- 
tional check or limitation, and which must necessarily terminate in the 
loss of liberty itself." 

Of these resolutions of 1833, Mr. Webster said truly, for conditions 
as well as the theory supported him: *'The argument arrives at once at 
the conclusion that what a State dissents from it may nullify; what it 
opposes it may oppose by force; what it decides for itself it may execute 
by its own power; and that in short, it is, itself, supreme over the legis- 
lation of Congress, supreme over the decision of the national judicature, 
supreme over the constitution of the country, supreme over the supreme 
law of the land." 

This of course is not wholly true, for the resolutions say that : *'When- 
ever the general government assumes the exercise of powders not delegated 
by the compact, its acts are unauthorized and are of no effect." The 
doctrine of nullification is not applied to the powers which are delegated 
in the Constitution. It must be admitted, however, that there is room 
for difference as to what powers are delegated. On this occasion Mr. 
Webster further said: "The Constitution of the United States is not a 
league, confederacy or compact between the people of the several 
States in their sovereign capacities; but a government proper, founded 
on the adoption of the people, and creating a direct relation between 
itself and individuals. No State has power to dissolve these relations; 
nothing can dissolve them but revolution." He further declared nulli- 
fication to be unconstitutional and a usurpation of the powers of the 
general government and of the equal rights of the other States amount- 



CALHOUN THE STATESMAN 245 

ing to revolution; that in cases capable of assuming the character of a 
suit, the Supreme Court of the United States was the final interpreter, 
and that in other cases Congress must be the final judge. This no doubt 
expresses the real and final position of Mr. Webster, despite the persua- 
sive arguments to the contrary, which Stephens bases on disconnected 
utterances of the great expounder. And this is substantially the result 
reached by the Civil War and now universally accepted in this country. 

I have thus given in brief and imperfect outline the positions of the 
two greatest men that have ever appeared in the United States Senate, 
upon the question of the relative powers of the State and Federal Gov- 
ernment. Into the arguments which they repeatedly made I cannot 
go for want of time, and it is not desirable that I should do so, as they 
are no doubt familiar. 

I wish to say frankly, that in the light of the resolution passed by 
State Conventions in adopting the Constitution; of the Virginia and 
Kentucky resolutions; of the opinion held by Jefferson; of the attitude 
of New England more than once on the question of secession, and as a 
matter of pure logic, the palm must in my judgment be awarded to Cal- 
houn. I believe that in the resolutions of 1837 he correctly expounded 
the purposes of the makers of the constitution, and correctly construed 
it as a matter of pure reason, having as the foundation of his argument 
the language of the Constitution and the circumstances attending its 
formation and adoption. At the same time, so far as the question of 
nullification and secession are concerned, Webster was clearly right as 
to what ought to have been done. Calhoun in 1837, but not in 1833, 
construed the Constitution logically, Webster on both occasions reason- 
ably, in the light of the interests and necessities of the Union and of the 
States. Calhoun's logic in the resolution of 1837 was irrefutable, but 
Webster's common sense was irresistible. Calhoun, the keenest of 
reasonerL, was able to support nullification by a complete syllogism; 
but I do not believe that there could be found now a man of mature age 
in the United States who would approve the theory. It may have been 
in the minds of some of the makers of the Constitution that a State could 
nullify the Acts of Congress, and still remain in the Union; but I am 
not convinced that there were such, and it is beyond question that such 
procedure would be incompatible with the existence of the Union. The 
question of secession was an open one until it was closed by the war. 
Calhoun did not champion secession, but his arguments for States' rights 



246 CALHOUN THE STATESMAN 

were the main props of the theory. The body of the general doctrine 
was sound. It is the accepted theory and construction of the Constitu- 
tion that all powers not conferred expressly or by necessary implication 
upon the general government remain in the States, and here there is 
debatable land, and always will be. The exact delimitation of Federal 
and State powers is an impossibility For forty years and more there 
has been a constant tendency to enlarge the powers of the Federal Gov- 
ernment. Experience and reason suggest that eventually this process 
will go too far, and then the pendulum will swing the other way. New 
England sought to minimize the federal authority when she believed 
the federal policy to be inimical to her commercial interests; and later 
the South followed and greatly exceeded the course of New England. 
These conditions are likely to recur. We shall not probably have any 
more secession; but as the war of 18 12 pinched New England, and as 
the tariff and the attack on slavery were injurious to the material inter- 
ests of the South, as the people believed, so no doubt future policies will 
give rise to similar complaints, and as the newer parts of the country 
grow and seek to surpass the old, and as the federal authorities seek 
constantly to magnify themselves, I doubt not that we shall one day see 
the sections that most opposed Calhoun re-asserting his general theory 
as their own, and as their own safeguard. As to secession, I cannot 
help believing that the logic is with the secessionists, and the right with 
their antagonists. I cannot believe that we could ever have become a 
genuinely great people, or that we could ever have felt secure, with the 
right of peaceable secession as an accepted part of our constitutional 
jurisprudence. So long as the doctrine was supported by a large minor- 
ity of the people, there was constant turmoil and fatal sectional division. 
The question demanded settlement, and let us not mistake the pur- 
poses of the great men, who participated in the struggle. Everyone 
will say that Mr. Webster was a patriot, but many that Calhoun was a 
very Mephisto. The truth is that one was as sincere and as truly a lover 
of the Union as the other. This much of justice is done Calhoun, even 
by Von Hoist, who has written a diatribe against Calhoun, calling it with 
a fine audacity, a life of Calhoun. Let us endeavor to deal justly with 
him. We can see now that it was possible to abolish slavery contrary 
to established law, by application of the higher law; and that it was possi- 
ble to have a war and for the North to be victorious over the South, and 
to restore the Union; but this fact remains that the questions between 



CALHOUN THE STATESMAN 247 

Calhoun and Webster, taking the two as representative, caused the war. 
Calhoun saw that the controversy was beset with gravest danger. Con- 
stantly before his mind was the conviction that unless the aggression 
of the North against slavery were checked disunion was the sure result. 
He did not favor disunion, nor seek to produce it, upon the contrary he 
literally gave his life to prevent it. There is no doubt that the cause of 
his death was the forty years of strenuous effort which he made for the 
solution of a problem which was insoluble save by appeal to the sword. 
Two things impelled him. He believed that the South was right and 
he sought to find a cause which would at once maintain her rights and 
preserve the Union. If I were to support my assertion of his patriotism 
and love of the Union by quoting Alexander H. Stephens, the soundest 
and most competent champion after Calhoun of the Southern view of 
secession, it might have no effect with those who require proof; but surely 
we may accept the judgment of Von Hoist, the most unfriendly biographer 
that ever put pen upon paper. No Court refuses to accept admissions 
against interest. This most learned and confident foreigner and least 
sympathetic of biographers says : **That he honestly and ardently wished 
the preservation of the Union, is, indeed, as certain as it is certain that 
his remedies had the effect of sledge hammer strokes." Referring to 
the war, he says of Calhoun : "He labored to the last with the intense 
anxiety of the true patriot to avert the fearful calamity." We have then, 
thus far, Calhoun's own statements of the doctrine of State's rights, ap- 
plied to the two great subjects of nullification and of slavery; and what- 
ever our personal judgments of his doctrine may be, we have as strong 
testimony of his good faith and of his patriotic purposes as could be 
adduced. Let us now briefly, as the limits of this paper require, look 
to the salient points of his character and of his career. 

His father was an Irishman, his mother the daughter of a Scotch-Irish 
Presbyterian, the daughter of a preaching Scotch-Irish family. His own 
characteristics were Scotch. His intellect was strong, clear, incisive. He 
had the highest and fullest development of the Scotch capacity for logic. 
The dominant traits of his character were sincerity, intensity, courage 
and persistence. As a speaker he was too much in earnest, too intense 
to care for the adornment of rhetoric. His diction was admirable and 
effective. It lacked the rotundity and the rhythm of Webster's periods, 
and he had none of the moving emotionalism that made Clay the most 
pleasing of popular orators. He was a reasoner, devoted supremely to 



248 CALHOUN THE STATESMAN 

his proposition, uttering it in the fewest strong words that could be made 
to express it. There is hardly a figure of speech in all his orations, but 
at the same time there is hardly an error of grammar or of rhetoric. I 
heard a man who served in the House of Representatives while Calhoun 
was in the Senate say that he had never heard anything more eloquent 
or effective than Calhoun's earnest intense utterances of the word *' Sen- 
ators" in one of his impassioned speeches. He was not widely read, 
except in the literature of government. He was scrupulously polite, 
always fair, apparently austere as he presented himself in public, but 
at home a model of domestic propriety, virtue and amiability. His 
personal life was spotless, and attacks upon him as a public man resulted 
only in the confusion of his accusers. He was the Covenanter of Amer- 
ican politics, but was of the sweet strain of the Scotch-Irish, not of the 
sour and hard kind, having little of that most repellent quality of one 
strain of the blood, which Carlyle characterizes as ''sardonic taciturnity," 
and which I, a Scotch-Irishman, have often seen exemplified. A sour 
Scotch-Irishman or woman may be a useful and excellent creature, but 
nature produces none that is less lovable. 

This excellent and great man entered Congress in 181 1 at the age of 
twenty-nine. This was the time of the agitation that preceded and produced 
the War of 1812. Calhoun, like Clay, was an advocate of the war and 
the supporter of it to the end. At this time the great issues that were 
soon to divide the people were not formed. It is said with a view to 
discrediting Calhoun that he was at first the friend of the tariff and of 
internal improvements. That this is true generally cannot be denied; 
but the particular measures which he advocated were not studied by 
any at that time with reference to future tendencies and results; and if 
we concede the truth of Von Hoist's assertion that he was at this time a 
nationalist, it is not a fact to his discredit. Webster changed positions 
on the tariff for local reasons, Calhoun changed position as his knowl- 
edge of the subjects enlarged. We do not require infallibility and pro- 
phetic foresight of men except when we are their unfriendly critics. Cal- 
houn's opinions did change as the young and inexperienced Congress- 
man grew into an experienced, a more learned, a wiser statesman. This 
has been true of many others. We can hardly rely upon Napoleon's 
change from Republican to Imperialist; but nobody doubts that changes 
of place by Bismarck and by Gladstone, very similar to Calhoun's change, 
were perfectly honest and in no respect discreditable. 



CALHOUN THE STATESMAN 249 

We must, in order to judge adequately and fairly, have these facts 
always in mind that no statesman can free himself from local influences, 
and that State loyalty and patriotism were sentiments which in the early 
part of this century were not less strong and esteemed, not less honorable 
than national patriotism. The tendencies and the actual injustices 
of tariff legislation first evoked from Calhoun the enunciation of the 
doctrine with which his name is forever identified. At present I do not 
say that the tariff is right or that it is wrong, as a matter of policy or of 
constitutional construction. But that the tariff of 1828 was highly ad- 
vantageous to New England, and equally injurious to the South, hardly 
any one will now deny. In the study of the Constitution at that time and 
before that time, Calhoun reached the conclusions which were set out 
in the resolutions of 1833 which I have quoted. That he honestly enter- 
tained these opinions, no one has ever seriously denied. 

As the anti-slavery agitation progressed, it became apparent to Cal- 
houn that this same doctrine of State sovereignty was the South's only 
protection against what he honestly believed to be a great injustice. He 
believed that the Constitution recognized slavery and guaranteed the 
right of slaveholding in aU parts of the Union. He did not regard slavery 
as an evil. He looked upon movements against it as invasions of the 
rights of the slaveholders, and as violative of the Constitution, and he 
honestly held the opinions set out in the resolutions quoted. I do not 
care to say that he was right or that he was wrong. My sole purpose 
is to present the man and the motives of his conduct. The questions 
are no longer open; but it is surely worth our while to try to be just to 
a man whose place in our history is one of almost unsurpassed impor- 
tance. 

To prevent this great injustice, as he saw it, he exerted all the powers 
of his great intellect. Almost alone of the men of his time he was wise 
enough and far-sighted enough to see that the continuation of the attacks 
upon slavery meant war between the sections. He was actuated there- 
fore by the two desires, first to preserve the Union, and second to pre- 
serve the rights of the South. To this end he studied the Constitution; 
to this end he spoke, and wrote, and labored unceasingly; to this end he 
gave his life. He sought to unite Southern Congressmen without regard 
to party, and in a measure succeeded. He called upon the North to 
put down by law the constantly recurring attacks upon slavery, and 
he called in vain. He did not favor the war with Mexico, because he 



250 CALHOUN THE STATESMAN 

apprehended an extension of our territory and a renewal of the question 
of allowing slavery therein. 

Personally I cannot concede that slavery was right. I believe it was 
wrong, and I am heartily glad that it was abolished. It was of service 
to no one but the negroes. Of all the African race upon the earth, none 
are so far advanced toward civilization, none are in any respect so well 
off as those in the United States. It was an unspeakable misfortune 
to us that we brought the negroes here; but it was a blessing to them, 
as things have turned out. But Calhoun and his contemporaries of 
the South, as a rule, saw only the benefit to the negroes, and the indis- 
putable right of the South to maintain the institution of slavery under 
the Constitution. 

We must not, in fairness, hastily or lightly judge Calhoun and his 
followers. Here was a man whose intellectual equal has not appeared 
in America in the last half century, a righteous, honest, true man, of 
unsoiled reputation. The South was solidly behind him; the North 
mobbed Garrison. Mr. Lincoln recognized the constitutional right of 
slavery and said openly that he would tolerate slavery, if by so doing he 
could preserve the Union. In the Dred Scott case the Supreme Court 
upheld slavery in the South, and Congress passed and the Courts en- 
forced the fugitive slave law, which we have heard Mr. Webster approv- 
ing. Looking back I see my Virginia grandfather, a life-long slave- 
holder, fifty years an elder of the church, the supporter of a whole com- 
munity; and I am sure that in a better world than this he enjoys the rich- 
est rewards that wait on saintly living and doing. And so we have mul- 
titudes of good men upholding slavery, the Constitution permitting and 
the Courts sustaining it. If these things do not make slavery right, 
they are good reasons for asserting the sincerity, and the justice of the 
purest and certainly not the least able of American statesmen. To me 
that most remarkable and comforting fact in secular history is the re- 
union of the American people, and the re-establishment of the Republic 
upon foundations which nothing can shake so long as the people retain 
their virtue. This marvelous result was made possible by the fact that 
each section has at least recognized and admitted the sincerity and the 
good faith of the other. 

The Constitution of the United States could never have been adopted 
even by the Convention, much less by the States, but for the compromise 
upon the subject of slavery. When the Northwest Territory became 



CALHOUN THE STATESMAN 25 1 

public property, slavery within its limits was prohibited. In course of 
time many States adopted laws against slavery. The Missouri Com- 
promise forbade it in a part of the territory purchased in 1803. The 
Supreme Court of the United States ultimately declared this restriction 
unconstitutional. The situation thus created could not last. This 
question of slavery could not be forever compromised. Sooner or later 
a direct issue was inevitable. From the adoption of the Constitution 
two different and antagonistic schools of construction existed. These 
were not at first sectional. We have during the War of 18 12, Calhoun 
a nationalist, in a sense, and at the same time we behold New England 
proclaiming the doctrine of States' rights, and almost in the very arti- 
cle of secession. 

Gradually the doctrine of strict construction and of States' rights found 
stronger and stronger lodgment in the South ; and as the antagonism to slavery 
grew in the North, the South found in them her only refuge from assaults, 
which were supported by the tendencies of the time and the moral sense 
of the world, but which were in plain controvention of her legal rights. 
Thus slavery forced the test of the question of States' rights. 

Webster did not persuade the South; Hayne and Calhoun did not 
convince the North. Congress, recognizing the legal warrant for the 
South's position, more than once reluctantly intervened for the protec- 
tion of slavery, but the time had come when that institution could no 
longer exist. The conflict was in very truth "irrepressible." But the 
Constitution stood between the abolitionists and their end. Perhaps 
it would be better to say that the Constitution stood between slavery and 
an irresistible moral force, because the abolitionists were to the last an 
inconsiderable company of violent and unreasonable, albeit very right- 
eous men. It was decreed that slavery must cease. It may be true 
that if extremists. North and South, Garrisons and Yanceys, had not 
precipitated the war, peaceful and equitable measures would have 
accomplished the result of abolition; but it was not to be so. And even 
if it had been so, the great underlying question of the right of secession 
would not have been settled. And so after all the sword may have been 
the best, because the only resort. 

In the terrible tragedy of the war each side forgot that any shadow 
of right was with the other. When the end came, the Constitution had 
been construed. The question of secession was forever at rest, and slavery 
had been abolished, not by law, but contrary to law, yet in accord with 



252 CALHOUN THE STATESMAN 

principles greater than any law that could be written, and in such manner 
that he whose unconstitutional fiat wrought the change, takes his place 
by reason of it, and justly among the greatest benefactors of mankind. 
But the fact to which I direct attention is that the great constitutional 
question involved was so great, and so beset with doubt, that the blood- 
iest of wars was the only possible means of settling it. 

The mighty intellects of Webster and of Calhoun could not solve the 
problem. The lofty patriotism of Clay essayed it in vain. For nearly 
half a century the Senate of the United States was the most conspicuous 
forum in the world by reason of the great debate upon this question. 
The orators who thundered there were as great as the world has seen, 
the intellects that contended are not surpassed in the armory of nations, 
the patriotism of our statesmen of both factions reflects undying honor 
on our name, but eloquence, reason and patriotism exerted themselves 
in vain. Each and all were inadequate. War and war alone could 
determine the question. 

When we remember these things, and the titanic and heroic struggle 
that came at last, shall any man impeach the sincerity or the patriotism 
of either section or any statesman who championed either cause in the 
great half century's debate that preceded the war.f* Calhoun was the 
champion of the cause that failed. The final unappealable, irrevocable 
decree was against him. He fought in the main, I verily believe, for 
the Constitution and the law as they were written; but he fought against 
destiny, against all the tendencies of the age. 

Happily the American people already begin, at least, to see him as 
he really was, a strong man of mighty intellect, of noble aspirations, of 
lofty patriotism, a true man, a great man, whose name will shine in our 
history, and be honored salong as the republic lives, so long as patriotism 
and virtue are esteemed. 




TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT. 

DO not doubt that I shall commend myself to this audience, by 
declaring at the outset the fact that no State has contributed 
more generously than Tennessee to the best population and 
therefore to the welfare of other States. It is an interesting 
and pleasing social phenomenon that all non-resident Tennesseans are 
persons of prominence. Wherever two or three of them are gathered 
together they manifest, unfailingly, a patriotic and altruistic readiness 
to assume the burden of the weightier and more remunerative business 
and political affairs of the community. The high purpose and the lofty 
spirit derived from an honorable ancestry prompt them to ready partici- 
pation in movements of reform, affording the double satisfaction of serv- 
ing the public directly, and themselves incidentally. 

Almost from the beginning of her history, Tennessee has been a dis- 
tributing point of valuable population for the Western, and more espe- 
cially for the Southwestern States. When Andrew Jackson carried his 
army of Tennesseans to New Orleans perhaps the most active sup- 
porter of our cause in the Mississippi territory was William Cocke, who 
had been twice United States Senator from Tennessee. At New Orleans 
his invaluable assistant was W. C. C. Claiborne, a former Tennessee 
judge and congressman. The Lieutenant-Colonel of the one regiment 
of regulars that served under him in the Creek War was Thomas H. 
Benton, then a resident of Tennessee, but destined to become the fore- 
most man in the great State of Missouri; while an ensign in the same 
regiment was Sam Houston, who was to become Governor of Tennessee, 
and later, President of the Republic of Texas. Thus, for a hundred 
years, Tennessee has sent out continually strong men who have affected 
powerfully and beneficially the social and political development of neigh- 
boring States. The list is too long to be recited, but some of the promi- 
nent names now in it are Charles K. Bell, Attorney General of Texas; 
Judge J. M. Dickinson, of Chicago, who won renown in the Alaskan 
Boundary case; Jeter Pritchard, of North Carolina, judge of the United 
States Circuit Court; the venerable John H. Reagan, of Texas; the not 
less venerable John T. Morgan, of Alabama; and Joseph W. Folk, now 
Governor of Missouri, and looking out upon a future beset with many 
perils, but withal as attractive as ever stirred ambition in the heart of 

(253) 



254 TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT 

man. May all good angels guard him on his way. I doubt not that he 
will continue to be — 

Statesman and friend to truth of soul sincere, 

In action faithful and in honor clear, 

Who breaks no promise, serves no private end. 

That all Tennesseans do not achieve the highest success at home 
is obviously due to the fact that there Tennessean meets Tennessean. 

My own section of the State has a reputation for astucity which is 
almost excessive. It is said that the children of Israel recognize, though 
reluctantly and with lamentation, the superior commercial genius of 
the native East Tennessean; while the people of Atlanta explain the 
paucity of Jews in that city by the fact that the East Tennesseans got 
there first. 

Our fore-fathers, for convenience, divided the State into three parts; 
and later generations unwisely have continued the arrangement which 
has given rise to unfortunate, sometimes absurd, sectional or divisional 
sentiment. Each section explains this rivalry by declaring that the 
people of the others are different in kind from its own. The real expla- 
nation is not difference, but too much likeness. The dominant trait of 
all alike is an innate, indomitable, aggressive and defiant independence, 
accompanied usually by a highly developed Scotch-Irish acquisitiveness. 

I do not know a Tennessean who admits that he has a superior. In- 
dividual liberty is not a phrase in Tennessee, but the most positive, potent 
and persistent fact — occasionally an excessive fact. Tennessee is the 
most intensely democratic community in existence. Its history is full of 
great achievements, all growing out of the invincible, irrepressible inde- 
pendence of its people. We had a republic in Tennessee three years 
before the battle of Lexington, three more republics before the adoption 
of the Federal Constitution, and another immediately afterwards. We 
became a State and elected United States Senators two months before we 
were admitted to the Union. 

A unique manifestation of our spirit of self-reliance and political 
centrifugence was in 1861, when, the State being slow to join the South- 
ern Confederacy, one of our counties seceded and declared allegiance 
to Alabama. 

Mr. Roosevelt has remarked upon the fact that while in Kentucky 



TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT 255 

and other Southern States, the control of affairs quickly passed from 
the first settlers to the more opulent class that followed them, with the 
result of giving to society a distinctly aristocratic quality; such was not 
the case in Tennessee. Here the spirit of democracy was never quenched. 
It resisted and overcame the eminently aristocratic institution of slavery. 
Between 1850 and i860, Andrew Johnson served two terms as Governor, 
and was elected to the United States Senate. He was not only of obscure 
origin, and without money or social position, but was the constant cham- 
pion of the common people, and the bitter and openly denunciatory 
enemy of everything that savored of class distinction. 

The original population of Tennessee was composed of the hardy, 
self-reliant pioneers who fought their way from the Carolinas and Virginia 
into the Holston Valley, and thence to the Cumberland before the end 
of the War of Independence, and of the Revolutionary soldiers of North 
Carolina, whom that State, having no money, paid in lands. The body 
of our present population is descended from these two cognate classes, 
from whom came the fighting blood, and the volunteer spirit of the State. 

When our fathers broke into the Union in 1796, they carried with 
them a Constitution so thoroughly democratic for that time, as to elicit 
the highest praise from Mr. Jefferson; and I do not claim too much when 
I say that they and their descendants of the first generation led the way 
to the establishment of true democracy in America. Their favorite 
pursuits were promulgating declarations of independence and making 
governments to suit themselves. Along with this intense love of personal 
liberty grew up an equally ardent attachment to the Union. 

The State's prominent participation in Federal affairs began in the 
political agitations that preceded the War of 18 12. George W. Camp- 
bell, Senator from Tennessee, was the most effective advocate of the 
Embargo Bill in the debates of 1808; and his arguments continue to be 
authority of great weight in favor of the power of Congress to suppress 
commerce for cause. The actual declaration of war received no stronger 
support than from Felix Grundy, who was then in Congress. The 
uprising of the Creek Indians was the bloodiest episode in the war, and 
was put down by the unaided efforts of Tennessee. Jackson led the 
fighting, while Governor Blount deserved all the thanks so freely bestowed 
upon him by the President and the War Department, for raising upon 
his own responsibility a fund of nearly $400,000.00 to support the army. 
The one great triumph of our arms oji land was at New Orleans, 



256 TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT 

where Tennessee militiamen, under our backwoods General, overcame 
the best soldiers of the Old World led by the bravest of British Generals. 
From this time dates the prominence of Andrew Jackson, the greatest 
leader of men this country has ever produced; first democrat of his time; 
first citizen of the most democratic State. 

Let us pass now to the end of the first quarter of the 19th century, 
when Jackson offered for the Presidency. A learned historian says 
of this period that *'a change of political weather was preparing." 
It was the change from a qualified, timid, hesitating democracy to a 
genuine, bold, self-reliant democracy. It was the final break with the 
past, putting the radical Jackson in the place of the re-actionary Adams. 
It was in a sense the triumph of the West over the East, of the unalloyed 
and aggressive native Americanism, born and bred in the free air of the 
frontiers, over the conservative Americanism of the old colonies, which 
was still tramelled by old-world influences. Broadly considered, the 
occurrences of the time in this country were products of a general 
ethical and intellectual movement, which, beginning in Europe, ex- 
tended over the civilized world. In England there were the begin- 
nings of great legal and institutional reforms; in Italy, of a strug- 
gle, finally successful, for unity and liberty; in France and Ger- 
many, of successful and unsuccessful attempts at revolution. In this 
country the activity varied in direction according to local conditions. 
On the sea-board were commercial enterprise and prosperity, and our 
manufactories began to be productive and important. In New England, 
with its accumulated wealth, settled social conditions, and devotion to 
education, the most conspicuous products were literary and philosophical. 
There were everywhere, in some form, splendid and beneficial mani- 
festations of the manhood, the competency, and the worth of our people 
and of the excellence of our institutions. To the America of that time, 
Milton's stately words may be applied without exaggeration : 

"Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rous- 
ing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invinci- 
ble locks; methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, 
and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam." 

How did it happen that in this extraordinary period, Tennessee, a 
comparatively new State, attained a position so prominent and influ- 



TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT 25/ 

ential as almost to justify the claim of one of her recent historians that 
from 1830 to 1850 she ruled the Union? It was because she was 
the best representative of the most important and effective social 
and political forces. American manhood had become conscious of 
itself, and ready and able to assert itself. The people of the new 
West had outgrown the natural and wise conservatism of the found- 
ers of the republic, and of the generation that had succeeded them. 
Federalism, limitation of the presidential succession, the congressional 
caucus, and the rule of what was called the better class were all swept 
away by the rising tide of the new democracy. The older States were 
the strongholds of conservatism, of precedent, of tradition. Every day's 
march westward left something of these behind, and developed inde- 
pendence and self-reliance. Tennessee and Kentucky were the leading 
Western States, but Tennessee was the more democratic, and had the 
foremost western man. There was not one of the strong democratic 
forces then at work that did not find its best outlet and opportunity in 
Tennessee. That the conditions in Kentucky, the older State, were 
less favorable to democratic development, is explained by the ascendancy 
of the wealthier and less progressive element of its population, and by the 
constitutional conservatism of Mr. Clay, the greatest individual force in the 
State's affairs. Jackson, of Tennessee, was the incarnation of the resistless 
spirit of the time; in all America was no other man who could have done 
what he did ; and primarily, he represented the democracy of Tennessee. In 
him, and in other strong men, Tennessee had what the time required 
for the establishment of the power of the common people; and it was 
because she had the men best adapted to the task that she gave presi- 
dents to the republic, and for a long time directed its councils. Let us 
turn for a moment to these resplendent pages of her history. In 
every presidential election from 1796 to 1832 inclusive, Tennes- 
see's electoral vote was cast for the Democratic-Republican candidate. 
In 1824 John Quincy Adams received only 216 votes in the State, and 
in 1828 only 2,240, while in 1832 Mr. Clay's vote was 1,436 and Jack- 
son's 28,740. These figures demonstrate the absence of serious opposi- 
tion to the Democratic party in the State. I know that Mr. Adams 
belonged to that party nominally, but his democracy was copiously di- 
luted. In 1836, however. Van Buren, the Democratic candidate foi 
President, was defeated in the State, although he received 26,120 votes, 

while the aggregate vote in opposition was about 36,000. In 1840 Harri- 
17 



258 TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT 

son carried the State by 12,000 majority, and in every succeeding presi- 
dential election until 1856, the Whigs had the majority. The change 
occurred in the year 1835. Why was it that the Democratic party, so 
long and so completely dominant, lost power? 

In 1835 culminated a strenuous, bitter and momentous contest, in 
which the leaders were four men, of whom I wish particularly to speak 
as the best representatives of what I have called "the Jackson period," 
to wit: Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk, on the one side, and 
Hugh Lawson White and John Bell on the other — four men not equalled 
in ability by any other four men in public life in any other State in the 
Union at that time. These four representatives of the sturdy Scotch- 
Irish race were all candidates at different times for the Presidency, and 
the two, who were elected, were not superior in mental capacity to those 
who were defeated, although it must be admitted that in the combina- 
tion of qualities necessary to the highest practical success, Andrew Jack- 
son rose above all his contemporaries. 

About the year 1820 there was an organized Jackson propaganda, 
with headquarters in Tennessee, which incessantly and strenuously 
labored to make its hero President, its leaders being John Overton, John 
Catron and William B. Lewis. It first encountered serious opposition 
at home in 1823. In that year John Williams, who had served seven 
years as United States Senator, sought re-election, but he had declared 
himself for William H. Crawford, of Georgia, for President. It became 
necessary, therefore, that he should be defeated for the Senate, and the 
propaganda failing to find any one else who could defeat him, brought 
forward, and not without difficulty, elected Jackson himself. In this 
contest were sown the first seeds of a political revolution in the State, 
but it was thirteen years before they germinated. In 1824 Jackson 
failed to secure the Presidency, but in 1828 he was elected. At that 
time White was in the Senate, and Bell and Polk were in the House of 
Representatives. White was at one time President pro tempore of the 
Senate, and Bell was elected once and Polk twice Speaker of the House 
of Representatives. Verily that was a time of many honors for Ten- 
nessee. In 1828 and in 1832 Polk, White and Bell were all supporters 
of Jackson, but as early as i83i,or certainly by the time of Jackson's 
second election, there was a distinct sentiment in Tennessee in favor 
of White as his successor. Jackson, however, had already selected as 
his successor, Martin Van Buren, chief of the famous Albany regency. 



TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT 259 

and the most skillful politician that ever held the Presidency. He had 
carried New York for Jackson, and had manifested to his imperious chief 
an unfailing and sagacious subserviency that demanded the largest re- 
wards. In addition he possessed the exceptional merit of having called 
on Mrs. Eaton. For these reasons he was the second ruler of the Repub- 
lic during the remainder of Jackson's term, and the President felt that 
with Van Buren as his successor, his own administration, practically, 
would be continued. 

The Federalist party was dead at this time, and its successor had 
hardly been born, so that there were really no party lines anywhere. 
In Tennessee there had been no parties up to this time, but politics 
had been entirely and particularly personal. For fifteen years Jackson 
had been the sun around which all the lesser luminaries revolved. Never- 
theless the unanimity had been more apparent than real, for men differed 
in opinion then as now; there were many eager and not a few disappointed 
ambitions, and the imperiousness of Jackson's methods continually 
created enemies. Times were now ripe for revolt in Tennessee, and 
the influences that led to the establishment of the Whig party were at 
work throughout the Union. White, the second man in Tennessee, and 
Jackson, the first, were drawing gradually apart. In 1831, White had 
been offered the Secretaryship of War, and later, in order to prevent 
his candidacy for President, other honors were offered him, and suc- 
cessively declined. In 1834 Jackson's patience, never to be relied on 
implicitly, was exhausted, and he declared with characteristic vehe- 
mence that if White became a candidate, he would be made odious to 
society. This statement was more remarkable for emphasis than for 
logic. 

The crisis came in 1834, when a majority of the Tennessee delegation 
in Congress sent a letter to White requesting him to announce himself 
for the Presidency. Prompted less by ambition than by a natural'resent- 
ment of the President's conduct and utterances, he complied. Promi- 
nent among his supporters were John Bell and David Crockett. Up 
to this time White and Bell and all other conspicuous Tennessee leaders 
had supported Jackson almost invariably. In a few instances both 
White and Bell had ventured to assert the right of individual judgment 
with the uniform result of angering the President. In 1827 there had 
been a contest for Congress in the Hermitage District between Bell and 
Felix Grundy, in which Jackson strongly supported Grundy, and in 



26o TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT 

every election between that date and 1834 the friends of the President 
had been arrayed against Mr. Bell. In the matter of the removal of 
the bank deposits, Bell had not supported Jackson, but had never placed 
himself squarely in opposition; and it is certain that, however much he 
may have resented Jackson's persistent opposition, he was reluctant 
to break with him finally. In 1835 he declared that the friends of White 
would adhere to Jackson, but would do so from a desire to be consistent 
and out of respect for their own characters and in support of their own 
principles. This was the last expression of a profound reluctance to 
depart from the old traditions and associations, and soon afterwards 
he emphatically renounced personal allegiance to Jackson. 

The die was now cast. White's announcement produced a furious 
factional war upon the two men who had thus become guilty of the high 
offense of disregarding the will of the President. The Globe, the admin- 
istration organ at Washington, declared Bell to be the real conspirator,, 
and denounced him for using White to break down the administration. 
Jackson conducted this war upon his usual plan of incessant and unre- 
lenting attack, no quarter being asked or granted. Bell must not be 
returned to Congress in the election of 1835, but no one could be found 
to run against him and he was re-elected. In the same year White was 
returned to the Senate, and a candidate friendly to him was elected Gov- 
ernor. But the battle did not end. In the next year would come the 
Presidential election, and Jackson always fought to a finish. The press 
of the State favored White, and so editors trained in vituperation and 
truculency were imported to abuse and ridicule White and Bell, and 
performed the task with unsurpassed fidelity and ability. The whole 
year long there was a rain of epithets and a thunderstorm of charges 
and counter-charges. The language of denunciation was exhausted 
speedily; the State was in turmoil; old allegiancies were cast aside and 
new ones assumed with unparalleled enthusiasm; every man became 
an orator and not a few became poets with the most extraordinary results. 
Jackson willingly endured the fatigues of the long overland journey from 
Washington in order, as his enemies said, to thrust the ''little huckster" 
Martin Van Buren, his heir apparent, down the throats of the people of 
Tennessee. White and Bell were called Whigs, that being regarded by 
the Jacksonian's at that time as the most opprobrious of epithets. By 
the less strenuous they were described as ingrates, apostates and traitors. 
The use of adjectives below the superlative degree was exceptional, and 



TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT 261 

there was a striking demonstration of the inadequacy of the superlative 
in Tennessee politics. 

But despite the epithets, the unnumbered orations, the deluges of 
denunciation, the unparalleled poetry, the personal efforts of Jackson, 
and the strong and natural indisposition of men to admit a change of 
political position, it became apparent long before the election day that 
Tennessee would have none of Van Buren. The people of the State 
had never been brought under the spell of Mr. Van Buren 's irresistible 
manners, and were not alive to the merit of his call upon Mrs. Eaton. 

In the election of 1836 White carried the State and even secured a 
majority in the Hermitage precinct. He was not elected, but he won 
the State over the opposition of the hitherto invincible Jackson, and thus 
arose the Whig party in Tennessee. 

For the next twenty years, John Bell, whom I place next after Mr. 
Calhoun in intellectual capacity among the Southern statesmen of the 
time, was the undisputed leader of the Whig party in Tennessee. He 
was elected twice to the Senate, and in i860 was nominated at Baltimore 
for the Presidency by the conservative Union party, his principal com- 
petitor being Sam Houston, then of Texas, but formerly of Tennessee. 
At that time, Mr. Bell was the most intellectual man in public life in the 
Southern States. 

In securing the election of Van Buren to the Presidency, Jackson 
carried out his design of continuing his own policies. Mr. Van Buren 
made haste to declare that it would be his purpose to follow in the foot- 
steps of his illustrious predecessor. I have always felt that the great 
State of New York should have made acknowledgment of the fact that 
she owes to a Tennessean the first of the many Presidents that she has 
given to the Union. It is hardly necessary to add that the general policies 
of Jackson were continued by his friend and follower, James K. Polk. 
The last Tennessee statesman of the Jackson period to attain high posi- 
tion was Andrew Johnson, whose first election to Congress occurred 
while Jackson was still President. Others who became prominent dur- 
ing the Jackson period were John Catron, Justice of the Supreme Court 
of the United States; Felix Grundy, Attorney-General of the United 
States; Aaron V. Brown, Postmaster-General; John H. Eaton, Secretary 
of War and Minister to Spain; William Carroll, six times Governor; and 
Cave Johnson, Postmaster-General. 

I have already shown tlie prominent part that lennessee had in pro- 



262 TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT 

moting and conducting the War of 18 12. I can only mention a few of 
the other great things which she may claim to have accomplished during 
the period of her political ascendancy. The overthrow of the Bank of 
the United States was the work of Andrew Jackson, and I say again that 
primarily Jackson represented Tennessee. The present organization 
of the Treasury Department of the United States resulted from Jackson's 
overthrow of the bank and may be attributed, fairly, to his policy. The 
part played by the statesmen of Tennessee in producing the Mexican 
War and the acquisitions of territory that followed it, need not be recited. 
One other thing of the first importance I mention. Of the growth of 
sentiment in this country toward what we now call nationalism, Webster's 
reply to Hayne was undoubtedly the first great oratorical and literary 
expression. Great as it was, however, it is not entitled to the praise of 
originality, except as to form; and there were many men in public life 
when it was delivered who were ready to avow its sentiments, although 
no one probably who could have presented them so effectively. 

The final test of devotion to the principles avowed by Mr. Webster 
was the practical one, and this was applied first to Jackson. I believe 
that the facts will fully sustain the assertion that Jackson's Nullification 
Proclamation did far more to settle opinion in the North upon the lines 
of Mr. Webster's argument than all other influences combined. It 
was a fine and courageous thing to announce principles so much opposed 
to a strong body of sentiment; but it was a finer and more courageous 
thing to meet an actual issue as Jackson met it in his proclamation. He 
was more advanced in his position and far more ready to convert his 
opinions into action than Mr. Buchanan was thirty years later, and it is 
not to be doubted that he established the precedent for 1861. 

There is much more that might be said, but time will not permit. 
The men and the events that we have considered must be regarded with 
pride by every Tennessean. We have seen how important a factor in 
public affairs Tennessee was in that admirable time — the Jackson period — 
and if now we consider material conditions within the State, we shall 
find hardly less cause for gratification. If we inquire as to social affairs, 
we shall see that the people had become coherent and in the best sense 
homogeneous, so that there was a distinct State sentiment and a proper 
State pride. The people were prosperous, progressive, morally sound, 
intellectually alert, strenuously patriotic and justly confident of the future. 
The second Constitution of the State, which was adopted in this period, 



TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT 263 

faithfully represented the popular will in its strong and excellent declara- 
tions in favor of education and of public improvements. There was 
no respect in which the State's condition was not exceptionally satisfac- 
tory, while its position in the Union was highly honorable, and of the 
first importance. This suggests the inquiry: Why is it now relatively 
less important and influential than it was seventy years ago? 

For a loss of position which is indisputable there are many causes, 
most of which are obvious. The one word "war" explains the situation 
generally; but there are certain matters in addition to the destruction 
of property and the overthrow of our industrial system that should be 
considered. Very much is being said at this time in regard to the loss 
of influence in the Union by the Southern States. The condition can- 
not be denied, but there is a large element of exaggeration in nearly all 
public utterances upon the subject. A recent Southern speaker plaint- 
ively regretted the fact that we have now no Calhouns, or even Lamars 
or Hills. If, on the other hand, we inquire why Massachusetts fur- 
nishes no more Websters, Everetts and Choates, while even the Adams 
have become unimportant, probably we shall realize that our want of 
great political leaders is the result of conditions that are not peculiar 
to the South, but that are general. The true generalization is that since 
the Civil War social and political forces have changed directions. The 
subjects demanding the attention of public men are radically different 
from the great questions of fifty or even twenty-five years ago. The 
public mind of the North is better prepared for the new problems that 
demand attention than that of the South; but in no section is a high 
degree of competency manifest. We are not consciously going in any 
direction; we are submitting to great forces which we cannot resist, and 
whose results we cannot foretell. It is a time of transition and prepara- 
tion when men are being made ready for great duties which as yet we 
are all incompetent to discharge, even to comprehend thoroughly. Politi- 
cal parties seem to be endeavoring to agree and to await future develop- 
ments. We are drifting on unknown and deep waters, out of sight of 
the old landmarks, believing that the "stream of tendency" is bearing 
us in the right direction, confident that no evil can befall a ship so big, 
with a cargo so rich. 

Passing from these general and probably not very instructive state- 
ments, there are certain palpable things upon which we can take hold. 
This is a time of unprecedented material development, and in this develop- 



264 TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT 

ment the South, for want of money, has had an inferior part. Seventy 
years ago the great men of the country were its orators and statesmen; 
a little later arose, especially in New England, a school of writers who 
claimed a large public consideration; now our most conspicuous and 
influential men are merchants, manufacturers and financiers, and all 
progress is, apparently, material. Under such conditions a compara- 
tively poor State, whose people are imperfectly trained in finance, and 
whose material resources have hardly begun to be developed, cannot 
hope to hold a leading place. 

Again, Tennessee, with all the other Southern States, is under the 
dominion of an artificial, but apparently unavoidable political and social 
question. So long as this imperative race question remains unsolved, 
it must present a natural and healthy cleavage and alignment of our 
people on political questions. This is less true, perhaps, of Tennessee 
than of certain other States, but the condition exists here, though in 
less acute form. The whole South has taken a position from which it 
will not recede. I do not ask whether it is right or is wrong, but only 
state the fact. In a free government, the people naturally divide into 
parties, and the agitations and rivalries which result from such divi- 
sions are necessary to public health and to political development. We 
cannot have such divisions and rivalries anywhere in the South under 
present conditions, and the situation, which is bad enough inherently, 
is continually made worse by well-meant, but injurious interferences, 
by men who are not directly affected by it, and who have no actual knowl- 
edge of it. A Southern State can hardly hope for a leading place in 
Federal affairs so long as this artificial and perilous question dominates 
Its domestic politics and dictates the conduct of its statesmen in Federal 
affairs. 

One other thing is of the first importance. The paramount duty 
of the time is education of the people, and it gives me great pleasure to 
declare that the dominant impulse in Tennessee at this time is in the 
direction of education. The unavoidable backwardness of the South- 
ern States in this respect is, to a limited extent, the cause of their rela- 
tively inferior positions in the Union. But the situation is not under- 
stood in other parts of the country. There has been no retrogression 
in the South, but upon the contrary, steady progress. The masses of 
the people are better educated, and the body of intelligence is larger 
now than ever before. Substantial advancement has been made in the 



TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT 265 

\face of obstacles of which the people of other sections of the Union have 
no conception. Circumstances have prevented us from keeping pace 
with the North and the West, and our average of illiteracy is still dis- 
tressingly high. The leaders of a people are not the few exceptional 
men of higher culture between whom and the masses there is little sym- 
pathy, but those who best represent the average of citizenship As the 
level of intelligence in a community rises, the demands upon those who 
aspire to leadership become more exacting. In a representative govern- 
ment, the influence of any community will be proportioned to the gen- 
eral intelligence of that community, because its representatives must 
always be men who rise somewhat, but not very much, above the aver- 
age. The world is better educated now than ever before. The natural 
and proper ambitions that we cherish for our State cannot be gratified 
without the better education of our people. 

Illiteracy is a great misfortune, a very positive evil; but, as it exists 
among the white people of the South today, it is not the worst of evils . 
The ilHterate white people of the South are not inferior in intellect, or 
in social value to the lower grades of literate white people in the cities 
of other sections, and are superior to them morally. They are, as a 
rule, both an intelligent and a pure people; an independent and a liberty- 
loving people. There is every reason why we should continue our cru- 
sade against illiteracy; but at the same time, we should not lose all sense 
of proportion and be unjust to our people, or permit them to be mis- 
judged or under-valued generally on account of a particular defect whose 
existence we must admit. 

Not very long ago, I heard a very earnest and worthy friend of edu- 
cation declare our illiteracy a menace to the country and its institutions. 
The speaker, referring to East Tennessee, coupled the words "moun- 
taineer" and "illiteracy," and I wondered if he knew that out of the moun- 
tains that were visible to him as he spoke, went in 1861 thirty thousand 
volunteers to fight for the Union, the largest number from any section 
of the Union in proportion to population. At the same time went half 
as many of these mountaineers to enlist under the banner of the lost 
cause. 

These people are entitled to sympathy and to help; but they are also 
entitled to respect. It so happens that Tennessee, with other neigh- 
boring States, is with more or less justice held guilty of the two civic 
faults which I shall call the most dramatic, furnishing the readiest and 



266 TENNESSEE, PAST AND PRESENT 

easiest material to the novelist and the declaimer, namely, violence and 
illiteracy. I do not undertake to discuss the subject of violence. It 
must be apparent to every fair-minded man that vsrith the grov^th of popu- 
lation, and with improved police service, crimes of violence will decrease 
steadily. 

We, of Tennessee, are essentially American. Not of unmixed blood, 
but of the least mixed, and with many generations of American ancestry 
behind us. Probably I am not speaking to a man or woman whose 
family was not represented in the American Revolution. We hear much 
said in praise of our old civilization, in all of which I concur. But it 
is more to the purpose, and is perfectly true, to say that at this present 
time the standards and the practice of the civic and of the personal vir- 
tues are higher in the South than in any other part of the country; that 
upon an average we have the best men and the best women leading the 
purest, and the least selfish lives. I say this, taking into account the 
lowering of levels that illiteracy must be allowed to produce. 

Referring more especially to our native State, I am of opinion that 
there is in the South more of contentment and of rational happiness than 
elsewhere in the Republic, although we may not deny that we are becom- 
ing infected with the great national vice of inordinate love of money. 
We have the largest body of genuinely American population, of gen- 
uinely American sentiment; that is to say, the largest body of sound and 
clean population and opinion in this hemisphere. 

Such qualities in men as demand free institutions, and such virtues 
as those institutions foster are logically and necessarily of high develop- 
ment here, because we are, as a rule, descended from men who fought 
for and established our liberties, whose faith and principles come to us 
as part of our very life through five generations of American ancestors, 
from whom we have the least diluted strain of Anglo-Saxon blood, and 
the purest Anglo-Saxon American traditions. 

I have no fear for the future of Tennessee. I am constrained to 
believe that present day activities in things purely material are excessive, 
and reaction inevitable; that if conservatism involve losses in certain 
respects, there are reason and duty and distinct social service in adher- 
ence to old and tried standards of faith and culture, and that the time 
will come quickly when the material prosperity of the South will be estab- 
lished on firm and enduring foundations. 




ATHANASIUS. 

lOT far from the time when Alexander the Great made his famous 

expedition to the temple of Jupiter Ammon, he caused to be laid 

in Egypt the foundations of a city which was to bear his name to 

our own time, and which was to be through many centuries the 

chief seat of that splendid civilization which his conquests spread abroad 

from Greece into the barbaric world. 

The city of Alexandria stands upon the shores of the Mediterranean 
at the Canopic mouth of the Nile, between the sea and Lake Mareotis. 
When the Ptolemies came into possession of Egypt they made it their cap- 
ital, and in the course of time it deserved to be called the most magnificent 
city of the ancient world. Two great streets, each one hundred feet in 
width, crossed at a right angle. At their intersection, which was the 
center of the city, rose the splendid mausoleum of the Macedonian 
conqueror. These broad avenues were resplendent and stately with 
marble temples, palaces, theatres, the most imposing perhaps, if not the 
most beautiful, conceptions of Greek architecture. A capacious and 
secure harbor received the commerce of all nations, and at its limit 
towered the famous lighthouse Pharos, called one of the seven wonders 
of the world, a mighty column of white marble, on whose lofty summit 
continually burned a fire whose light went many miles out to sea. 

Alexandria became the commercial capital of the world. The sails of 
her argosies whitened every sea from that burning zone on the south which 
no mariner dared invade, to the waste and tempestuous shores of Ultima 
Thule. Her influence was great in all the earth, and her name was a syn- 
onym of power and splendor. But this was not her great glory. In the 
Bruchion, the aristocratic quarter of the city, there stood in her golden 
age a spreading and massive structure of white marble, on whose broad 
and pillared piazza in the cool of the morning and evening thousands 
daily assembled. This was the museum, and within its walls were gathered 
the choicest treasures of the world. Its halls and porticoes were adorned 
with the master-work of the Hellenic genius in painting and in sculpture, 
and its library held, in that day of manuscript books, four hundred thousand 
volumes, while the temple of Serapis, near by, contained three hundred 
thousand more. 

The museum was dedicated to the perpetuation, increase and difl?"usion 
of knowledge, and was the visible manifestation of an intellectual primacy 

(a67) 



Z6S ATHANASIUS 

such as no other city has ever attained, not even Athens in the age of Per- 
icles, or Florence in the days of the Medici. In Alexandria the philoso- 
phy of Plato had a new birth and a vigorous if morbid life in the school of 
the Neo-Platonists. At the same time the exact sciences were studied 
according to the methods of Aristotle of Stagira, the putative father of 
induction. In the halls of the museum, trigonometry, astronomy, geome- 
try, physics, mathematics pure and applied, in all departments, flourished 
and attained a growth such as they had never known before. A scholar 
of the museum invented the fire engine and first measured time by a 
clock. Another conceived the steam engine, but it remained for the 
more advanced science of a remote century to apply the invention to 
practical uses. Still another formulated a theory and system of astron- 
omy which yielded only to the discoveries of Copernicus and Kepler. 
From the museum went out the knowledge that enlightened the pagan 
conquerors of the seventh century and made possible that brilliant, if eva- 
nescent, outburst of civilization among the Saracens to which so many 
trace our own western revival of learning. 

Alexandria was in truth the birthplace of modern science. But this is 
not all. Her glory did not expire with paganism, nor did her intellectual 
supremacy depart with the overthrow of pagan religions and philosophies. 
Early in the days of Christianity she became the stronghold of that true 
and invincible faith. Rome had ceased to be the seat of empire. She had 
passed the zenith of her greatness and witnessed the founding of a new 
imperial city upon the Hellespont. Alexandria had not gone unscathed. 
In the siege of the city by Julius Caesar the museum and its library had 
been burned, and in many other ways her splendors had been wasted; but 
though declining she had not fallen. Through all these centuries her 
people had been trained and sharpened. The Greek intellect, the subtlest 
the world has produced, there reached the perfection of subtlety, and the 
Greek language, the most powerful and flexible of all tongues, there 
attained its highest development. 

In this environment of the highest intellectual culture, now super- 
refined and fantastical, strongly tinctured with the scepticism begotten of 
the clash of religions and the visible decay of the one most in vogue, was 
born Anno Domini, 297, one of the most notable men in all church his- 
tory. It is important to bear in mind the fact that at the end of the third 
century the State religion of the Roman Empire was still pagan. In the 
year 303 occurred the atrocious persecution of the Christians by the 



ATHANASIUS 269 

Emperor Maximian, one of the most general, most persistent and most 
cruel that the followers of Christ have ever suffered. 

Athanasius v^as born of Christian parents, but we have no record of the 
fortunes of the family in this dark period. Probably their station was too 
humble to attract the attention of the persecutors. Yet they must have 
been people of some culture, for we know that Athanasius was a man of 
liberal education; that he was trained in grammar and rhetoric, studied 
Homer and Plato, the philosophy of Greece, and jurisprudence. Nature 
had endowed him with an intellect both comprehensive and acute, and the 
surroundings of his youth, though variable and dangerous, were calcu- 
lated to call into play and to develop all his faculties. 

The population of Alexandria was mainly composed of three classes — 
Christians of diverse nationalities, Jews, and pagans of the old Egyptian 
or Coptic school. For many centuries the city had been a stronghold of 
the Jews and of Judaism. It was there, nearly three centuries before 
Christ, that the famous septuagint translation of the Old Testament was 
made. And thus for ages had flourished side by side the dark and mys- 
terious adoration of Isis and Osiris, the aesthetic and superficial polytheism 
of Greece and Rome, and the worship of Jehovah. It is also more than 
probable that the subtle and profound philosophies of India and Persia 
were not unknown to the students of the museum. 

In this vast and splendid city, cosmopolitan in composition and in 
opinion, comprising all sorts and conditions of rren, all philosophies, all 
religions, all beliefs and all unbeliefs, representing the best and the worst 
of an uncertain and transitional epoch, Athanasius was born and reared. 
As a young man he witnessed the last desperate struggle of the dying pagan- 
ism, and beheld with pious joy the irresistible march of the true faith. 
One of the favorite legends of the fathers which has at least the merit 
of probability, is in thorough keeping with the character of Athanasius as 
it has come down to us: 

The Episcopal Palace of Alexandria was on the seashore. One after- 
noon as the archbishop stood at a window he saw a group of boys at play 
on the beach. His attention was arrested by the fact that one of them was 
acting as bishop and baptizing the others in the sea. Perceiving in this 
a smack of irreverence, he caused the boys to be summoned to his pres- 
ence. The youthful bishop was subjected to a severe catechizing, and 
endured the ordeal so successfully that the real bishop ended by recog- 
nizing the baptism as valid and insisted upon following it with confimia- 



270 ATHANASIUS 

tion. The young ecclesiastic was Athanasius, who soon became an inmate 
of the palace and the secretary of the Primate. Whether all this story be 
true or not, it is certain that at an early age Athanasius was the amanuensis 
of the Archbishop of Alexandria, and that he so discharged his duties as 
to become speedily the most trusted of friends and advisers. 

Thus the formative years of his life were spent under the most orthodox 
influences, and at the very center of ecclesiastical and intellectual activity. 
The turn of his mind was early manifested in the preparation of a treatise 
against the Gentiles, which was an exposure of the errors of heathenism 
and a defense of monotheism. This was one of the earliest, as it was one 
of the ablest, eflPorts to present the truths of Christianity in logical and 
philosophical form. And this was the beginning of the long fight for the 
faith, in which Athanasius was destined to be the most conspicuous and 
the worthiest actor. The church was now upon the verge of the most 
persistent and dangerous internecine struggle that occurred in the first fif- 
teen centuries of its life. 

One day there came into the city of Alexandria, out of the desert 
of Libya, a strange man. He wore the garbiof the church, and in that 
organization his name was not entirely unknown, but as yet it had 
none of that sinister prominence which it was afterwards to attain. 
This man was already advanced in age. The scant hairs of his tonsure 
were white, his sallow face showed the traces of years. His eyes were 
sunk deep under shaggy brows, but they were bright with the fires of intel- 
lect and resolution. His tall form showed the effects of long and rigid 
asceticism, but it was still unbent. Clad in the coarse and scanty vest- 
ments of the hermits of the wilderness, he came uncalled and unheralded. 
Quickly demonstrating both the will and the capacity to work, he found a 
place among the Primates' chosen friends, and at the time when He 
demands our attention was rector of Baukalis, the oldest parish in Alex- 
andria. I have not found that he was an eloquent man, or popular, but as 
a dialectician and as a polemic he has had few equals in the history of the 
church, while his persistency of purpose and force of character would have 
made him irresistible in a good cause. This man was Arius, a name of 
tremendous significance to all who know the history of the church. 

For some years after the appearance of Arius in Alexandria, we have 
no hint of the doctrines which, later, made his name so familiar to the 
world. He appears to have discharged his pastoral functions efficiently 
and acceptably. But finally it was whispered about that he was uttering 



ATHANASIUS 27 1 

Strange opinions. The Primate sent for him and engaged him in an argu- 
ment in which it was speedily apparent that right or wrong, Arius was his 
superior in disputation. The young deacon Athanasius was called to the 
rescue of his discomfited superior, and the judgment of the listeners was 
that thenceforth Arius had the worst of the argument. But Arius was not 
to be argued down. In his church and elsewhere he continued to pro- 
claim his opinions. At last his persistent and defiant heterodoxy forced 
the archbishop to convoke a synod of his clergy. Before this synod Arius 
came, not as a penitent nor even as a defendant, but as a bold aggressor, 
declaring that he held the true faith and that his enemies were the real 
heretics. This was probably in the year 319. 

The point at issue in the controversy was as to the position of the Son 
in the Holy Trinity. Arius maintained that the Son was inferior and sub- 
ordinate to the Father. The ver}^ nature of sonship, he declared, neces- 
sarily implied that there was a time when the Son did not exist, and a time 
when he commenced to be; hence He must be a created being, a creature; 
that as a creature He could not even fathom His own Being; that, there- 
fore, in essence, the Father and the Son were unlike to all infinity; that 
consequently there could be no identity, but only a resemblance of nature 
and substance between the Father and the Son. 

It is easy to see that in its ultimate analysis Arianism was a polytheism. 
That it worshipped God the Father, who was a very God, and also God 
the Son, who was only a deified creature, like the Greek Hercules, the 
Egyptian Osiris and probably the Norse Woden. But despite the weak- 
ness and the fallacy of the theory, it was defended with incomparable zeal 
and astucity, and secured so many and such influential adherents that the 
synod shrank from the invidious duty of condemning it. Therefore, its 
deliberations were devoid of substantial results. Arius, thus virtually the 
victor, was encouraged to a vigorous propagandism, and by his energy, 
force and specious reasoning rapidly added to the already large number of 
his adherents. The archbishop, faithful to his duty and keenly alive to the 
danger threatening the church, summoned a council of one hundred bishops 
of Egypt, Mareotis, Pentapolis and Libya. By this synod Arius was 
promptly condemned, and a vigorous encyclical letter spread the sentence 
throughout the Primate's jurisdiction. 

Within three years from the Synod of Alexandria, it had extended 
throughout the Christian world, creating two factions that warred upon 
each other in the most un-Christian spirit, bringing disaster and deep 



272 ATHANASIUS 

disgrace upon the church. The best days of Greek philosophy produced 
nothing approaching this controversy in dialectical subtlety and finesse, 
and had the disputants been content to use only these intellectual weapons, 
the shame of the church would have been much less; but both sides being 
impervious to argument, the exasperation of protracted and fruitless con- 
tention finally impelled laymen and ecclesiastics alike to the vilest slander, 
to intrigue, and eventually to personal and political violence. The tongue 
of slander thus loosed has not spared Athanasius, but I am prepared to 
deny that his conduct exhibits any unworthy action, or implies any motive 
but a sincere and lofty piety. 

And here I wish to say, that while I am speaking freely in condemna- 
tion of the weaknesses of the early Christians, I by no means intend to 
endorse the fallacious argument of the enemies of Christianity who, with 
wilful injustice, attribute the fault to the church rather than to the material 
upon which it wrought. There was never a time when Christianity was 
not, both as a religion and as a system of ethics, infinitely superior to all 
others, and the unprejudiced mind will recognize in the incomparable 
achievements of Christian civilization abundant proof of that fact. 

But as to the subject we are now considering, I need not rely upon 
generalizations of my own. Mr. Lecky, in his history of European morals, 
comparing early Christianity with paganism and speaking only as a moral- 
ist, says: "The high conception that has been formed of the sanctity of 
human life, the protection of infancy, the elevation and final emancipation 
of the slave classes, the suppression of barbarous games, the creation of a 
vast and multifarious organization of charity, and the education of the 
imagination by the Christian type, constitute together a movement of 
philanthropy which has not been paralleled or approached in the pagan 
world." 

I intend to say the worst that can be said of the Christianity of the 
fourth century. I would not dare even to hint to you the worst that is 
true of the paganism which it was supplanting. Its pervading and fatal 
wickedness, its monstrous crimes, its appalling immoralities and hateful 
indecencies paralyze the mind and the imagination and defy description. 
And yet I would not be understood to deny that even in that old decompos- 
ing paganism, there was much that was beautiful and good. The 
pagans, still numerous throughout the decaying empire, seized eagerly 
upon the opportunity afforded by the Arian schism to deride and 
denounce Christianity, The theatres were crowded to see and to applaud 



ATHANASIUS 273 

satires and burlesques upon the trinitarian controversy. The very street 
resounded with ribald songs; and professional wits, in all ages the least 
endurable of men, displayed their brightness in such questions as this, 
addressed to the women : "Pray, had you a son before you were a mother ?" 

In the midst of this babel of confusion, noise, violence and scoffing, one 
man was serene, undismayed, self-contained, reverent, determined. Atha- 
nasius alone seems to have realized that upon the determination of these 
questions the very life of Christianity depended. In mind and in will 
he was of finer and firmer texture than any man of his time. He 
was the man ordained by Providence for the time. The archbishop 
of Alexandria was less able, less pious, less courageous than Athanasius. 
When the storm broke in its full fury upon him as the represen- 
tative of the orthodox party, he quailed before it, and but for the sup- 
port of his deacon, Athanasius, would have succumbed. Perceiving this, 
and recognizing his superior abilities and invincible courage, the Arians 
threw the weight of their attack against Athanasius. He was a man of 
insignificant appearance, and that fact appears to have been particularly 
exasperating. It was intolerable that this little fellow should be able to 
overcome the most robust champions of Arianism. 

The disturbance ere long made itself felt in politics. The great Con- 
stantine, then in the plenitude of his power and success, attempted by his 
imperial fiat to restore harmony, but only to find that the conqueror of 
many Caesars was powerless to deal with this abstraction. Threats availed 
him nothing and his august ridicule fell flat. Disgusted and dismayed 
by a condition for which his practical and untrained mind could find no 
adequate explanation, and nothing like justification, he was finally inspired 
to a course whose results upon the subsequent history of the world are 
incalculable. He determined to call a general council of the church. 

It may be interesting to pause here and enquire what the church was at 
that time. I have mentioned the fact that in the year 303 the reigning 
emperors had instituted a furious persecution of the Christians. In the year 
313, the Emperor Constantine had issued a decree known in history as the 
edict of Milan, by which he proclaimed toleration of Christianity. In the 
year 324 when his power had become more firmly established, he issued a 
general edict advising all his subjects to follow his own example and declare 
for Christianity. There are no satisfactory statistics of the numerical 
strength of the church at this time, but we have the authority of Gibbon 
for the statement that its affairs were adtiiinistored by 1800 bishops, of 

18 



274 ATHANASIUS 

whom 900 were seated in the Greek provinces and 800 in the Latin prov- 
inces. If there had been uniformity in the extent or population of the dio- 
ceses we might easily estimate the number of Christians, but there was no 
such uniformity, and we can only infer from the number of bishops that a 
very large proportion of the people had embraced the true faith. That a 
majority had not is made probable by the fact that within two decades of 
the first general council had occurred the persecution of Maximian. 
That the Christians were the active and growing party in the empire we 
know, and it is probably not a wholly unjustified suspicion which connects 
the conversion of Constantine with that fact. The trinitarian controversy 
was the first serious check to the growth of the church. Persecution had 
been unavailing, but this internal dissension promised the most disastrous 
results. 

The place selected by the emperor for the meeting of this first and 
greatest ecumenical council was the city of Nicea, in Bithynia. This 
ancient Bithynia was a part of the present Turkey in Asia which touches 
the southern shores of the Black Sea and of the Sea of Marmora. Nicea 
was centrally located and was easily accessible by means of the unequalled 
system of public roads that tied the empire together. Thither in the 
spring or summer of 325, for the authorities are discordant as to the exact 
time, came some 300 bishops and 2,000 inferior clergymen. Tradition fixes 
the number of bishops at 318, connecting it with the number of armed ser- 
vants with whom Abraham delivered Lot from captivity, and with certain 
other features of the arbitrary and fanciful symbolism which was so much 
in favor among the early Christians. 

The Council of Nicea was not called for the sole purpose of settling 
the Arian controversy, but that subject obscured all others, and we may 
pass with simple mention the fact that it fixed the time for observing Easter 
and disposed of the forgotten heresy of Meletius. The great work of the 
council is fully preserved in the creed which perpetuates its name, but as 
to many minor details there is a wide disparity of authority. It is certain that 
most of the bishops were from the East, it is probable that the first meeting 
was in May, and that the dissolution occurred in August; that the delib- 
erations were held at first in a church and afterwards in a hall of the impe- 
rial palace prepared for the purpose. Among the participants were many 
whose names fill large places in ecclesiastical and secular history. There 
were men of all languages, and of all the multitude of races subject to the 
sway of the Caesars. There was Paphnutius, bishop of the Thebaid, the 



ATHANASIUS 275 

home of monasticism, of which I shall speak later. This venerable prelate 
was only a remnant of a man. One foot dragged upon the floor, because 
the sinews of his leg had been cut while the rancor of a brief successor in 
office had sent him a manacled slave to toil in a mine. This was a proof 
of the rarity of Christian charity, while the hollow and scorched socket of 
the eye which had been burned out in the last bitter persecution of the 
Christians, spoke to his brethren of fearful suffering and of the invincible 
fortitude of a sublime faith. 

The thoughtful mind is im pressed by the fact that in the youth of this 
mutilated saint, Christianity was a helpless prey to paganism, while in his 
old age it virtually ruled the earth. There also, says Farrar, "Paul, bishop 
of the Mesopotamian Neocaesarea, uplifted in benediction a hand which 
the fire had scorched," and the rude figure of James of Nisibis, in his coat 
of camel's hair, recalled the aspect of John the Baptist. Others were from 
Potamon, from the Nile deserts, and Theophilus from the far Norseland, 
whose viking conquerors became the militant champions of the Arian 
creed, and by the might of their long blades maintained it for centuries, 
not only in their fatherland, but in Gaul, in Italy, Spain and Africa. For 
Alaric, the first and greatest of the yellow-haired Norsemen who vanquish- 
ed the Roman Eagles; Genseric, the fierce and gentle vandal who planted 
a German nation on the hot soil of Africa, to enjoy a brief tenure of power, 
to promise for a season the rise of a new Carthage, but soon to yield to the 
enervations of a tropical climate; and also Theodoric, called, not without 
justice, the Great, were all Arians, and all through the teachings of one 
Ulfilas, a pupil of this Theophilus of the Nicene Council. 

The House of Bishops included many of the most learned men in the 
church. Eusebius of Nicomedia and the more learned Eusebius of Cae- 
sarea were nearest of all to the royal family and both might claim a wide- 
spread fame, if not an equally extensive approbation. Arius was present; 
and so was Alexander, Primate of Egypt, accompanied by his secretary, 
Athanasius. So humble was the office of Athanasius that some pictures 
of the council represent him as sitting on the floor, but it is said that his 
vehement zeal and keen logic inspired terror in all his enemies. Arius 
had many able and influential supporters, and it was evident from the 
first that the struggle would be a hard one. 

The proceedings were long delayed by the tardiness of the emperor, 
who was celebrating at Nicomedia and elsewhere the victories which a few 
years before had made him sole master of the civilized world. At last he 



276 ATHANASIUS 

came, and the day was set for the formal opening of the council. Con- 
stantine selected the anniversary of his victory over Licinius, the last of 
his competitors. That summer morning presented a scene worth study- 
ing. Says the eloquent Farrar: "The bishops were gathered in the great 
hall of the palace, dilated, as it were, by God." They were seated on chairs 
ranged about the center of the hall, while the inferior members sat behind 
them on benches. In the exact center of the hall was a chair on which lay 
a copy of the four gospels, symbolizing the presence of Christ. The em- 
peror's throne was at one end. In silence the assembled representatives 
of the Ruler of the Universe awaited the coming of the ruler of the earth. 
A sound of martial music proclaimed the emperor's presence, the halls 
resounded to the tramp of marching men, the doors were thrown open 
and the assembly rose as one man to receive its temporal master. Many 
of these simple-minded, simple-mannered men of God now beheld the 
great emperor for the first time. They knew and loved him as the 
champion and protector of the church, but their distant homes had never 
been honored by his august presence. 

Constantine deserves more than passing notice. Gibbon truly says: 
"The character of the prince who removed the seat of empire and intro- 
duced such important changes into the civil and religious constitution of 
his country, has fixed the attention and divided the opinions of mankind. 
By the grateful zeal of the Christians, the deliverer of the church has been 
decorated with every attribute of a hero, and even of a saint; while the 
discontent of the vanquished party has compared Constantine to the most 
abhorred of those tyrants who by their vice and weakness dishonored the 
imperial purple." But these beautifully balanced sentences do not prevent 
the great historian from a very one-sided estimate of Constantine. In this 
and in most other cases of the kind, the middle way is the safest, and what- 
ever vices may darken the character of the first Christian emperor, it is 
both natural and right that Christians, remembering the butcheries of 
Nero, Diocletian, and Maximian, should honor and praise the name of 
Constantine; and impartial history has established his claim to many 
virtues. 

Doubtless, as he paused in the doorway of the council hall of Nicea, 
every heart went out to him in reverence and affection. Physically, he was 
one of the handsomest men of his day. His figure was far above the usual 
stature and gracefully moulded, his countenance frank and majestic, his 
demeanor such as became a man whose word was the law of the earth. 



ATHANASIUS 277 

He was clad now, not in the simple garb of a Roman patrician, but in the 
splendid vestments of Oriental royalty. His diadem of purple was gar- 
nished with the rarest gems of the imperial treasury, a robe of purple silk 
glittering with embroidery and jewels fell from his massive shoulders, and 
not less than these, the purple buskins which none but an emperor might 
wear indicated his purpose to honor the occasion. It is related that as he 
passed down the aisle to his throne, a blush, visible to all who were pres- 
ent, spread over his countenance. He realized that he was in the presence 
of the representatives of a majesty infinitely higher than his own. He did 
not seat himself until signed to do so by the bishops. To an elaborate ora- 
tion by Eusebius of Caesarea, he replied briefly in Latin, counseling peace. 
But, alas, there was to be no peace for many years. 

Never was more fervor of eloquence, more subtlety of reasoning or 
refinement of logic displayed than in this convention. Arius was his 
own champion, and found in Athanasius his most astute and formidable 
antagonist. The point of the contention will easily be found by turning 
to the creed, where it is said of the Son that He is: "Begotten, not made: 
Being of one substance with the Father." This was the declaration of 
Athanasius and his associates. That the Son was of the same substance 
with the Father. The Arians held that the Son was of like substance with 
the Father and was made, not begotten. For denoting the same substance 
the Athanasians employed the Greek word "homoousios," while the 
Arians used "homoiousios," meaning of like substance. And so Gibbon 
derides the Christians and calls them the victims of a diphthong. 

The Apostles* Creed has come down to use from the very earliest days 
of Christianity. Its origin as a definite symbol can not be precisely ascer- 
tained. The creed formulated by the Council of Nicea is known as the 
Nicene or Athanasian creed, and is the same now printed in the prayer 
book, except that it ended with the words "we believe in the Holy Ghost." 
The articles that follow that were added by the Council of Constantinople, 
A. D. 381. 

When Athanasius went to Nicea he was a young man, but little known 
beyond the limits of his native city; when he returned his fame extended 
through the empire. He was by common consent the leader of the ortho- 
dox party. No member of the council had contributed half so much as he 
to the result. Five months after the council, the archbishop of Alexandria 
died, and on the i8th of June, 326, Athanasius was elected his successor. 
Many older men were passed over, for the times demanded that the best 



278 ATHANASIUS 

should be first. For forty-six years he was to be patriarch, or as he was 
called, Pope of Alexandria. The title of Pope was not given exclusively 
to the bishop of Rome until A. D. 385. 

I regret that I can not relate the subsequent career of Athanasius in 
detail. It has all the fascination and excitement of a romance. I know of 
none more devoted, heroic or admirable. From the very beginning the 
Christian people of Alexandria evinced for him a passionate devotion which 
endured to the end of his life; and this was not less true of the hundred 
bishops and the multitude of priests who acknowledged his sway. But the 
Arians hated him with an undying and an un-Christian hatred. They 
challenged the validity of his election, and no slander was too vile, no 
falsehood too monstrous or absurd, to be told of him. At first they 
were comparatively powerless, but ere long gathered support and 
courage. They began upon him a warfare of unparalleled bitterness 
and ferocity. Says one historian: "They never suflFered him to enjoy 
the comfort of a peaceable day." There are no darker pages in the 
church's history than those that record the deplorable events of this con- 
troversy. Calumny and falsehood were the weapons of the Arians until 
they were strong enough to use force, and, while no just reproach attaches 
to Athanasius, his followers sometimes endeavored to justify the adoption 
of a policy, speciously described as "fighting the devil with fire." 

Constantine had heartily accepted the Nicene Creed, and for three 
years Arius suffered exile. His followers, known now as the Eusebians, 
succeeded, through their influences with Constantia, the emperor's sister, 
in securing his recall. Gradually increasing in boldness, they demanded 
that Arius be received again intothecommunionof the Alexandrian Church. 
The emperor, whose faith was elastic and whose capacity to comprehend 
the subtleties of theology was extremely moderate, so to speak, readily 
gave the order, and Athanasius as promptly declined. The emperor was 
enraged, and lent a ready ear to certain absurd charges. Athanasius went 
to Nicomedia, met Constantine, confuted his enemies and returned bear- 
ing a highly commendatory letter from the variable Caesar. In a little while 
a new and a more serious charge was preferred by the indefatigable Euse- 
bians. They charged Athanasius with the grave crime of murder, and 
the still more atrocious felony of practising magic. As the man Arsenius, 
who was alleged to have been murdered, was proved to be alive, the em- 
peror again relented. 

This was in 333. In 335 a council of the church met at Tyre, and the 



ATHANASIUS 279 

charge of murdering Arsenius was revived. The production of Arsenius 
in proper form was sufficient to convince even the Arians on this point. 
Then they charged him with causing the desecration of a church and the 
destruction of a sacred chaHce. It was clearly shown that neither church 
nor chalice had ever existed, but the inexorable Arians never admitted it. 
Finally, they accused him of stopping the corn ships bringing supplies from 
Alexandria to Constantinople. They could not prove it, and it was not 
true, but the emiperor was worried beyond endurance and, by an extraor- 
dinary non sequitur, banished Athanasius to Gaul for being the victim of 
so many falsehoods. 

Arius returned to Alexandria, but, engaging himself actively in foment- 
ing riots, was recalled. He thereupon began to amuse himself by present- 
ing to the emperor numberless creeds so ingeniously constructed that Con- 
stantine, becoming hopelessly confused, decreed finally the orthodoxy of 
Arius, presumably as a measure of self-defense. 

Alexander, Primate of Constantinople, feeling himself too weak to 
resist the emperor's command to admit Arius to communion in the church, 
Irene, is said to have prostrated himself in prayer for the removal of the 
arch heretic. The next day Arius expired as he was on his way to the 
church; his manner of death being so appalling that his enemies likened 
it to the fate of Judas, and his friends attributed it to poison. This was 
in the year 336. In the spring of 337, Athanasius, patiently enduring exile 
in the inhospitable climate of Gaul, heard that Constantine, wearing his 
white baptismal robe, having put aside the imperial purple, was lying on a 
white bed awaiting death, and ministered to by an Arian bishop. On the 
20th of May, 337, the defender of the Cross died. He left the empire 
divided between his three sons. Constantine was to reign over Gaul, 
Constantius over the East, and Constans over Italy and the West. The 
three emperors met and amicably partitioned the world, and were pleased 
to concur in the restoration of Athanasius, whose return to Alexandria in 
November, 338, was celebrated with illumination, rejoicings and thanks- 
givings. 

Instantly the implacable enmity of the Arians was alert. The old 
weapons of falsehood and slander were strenuously employed. There was 
nothing true to be said against Athanasius, but he was overwhelmed with 
calumny. The enraged controversialists halted at nothing to achieve 
their purposes. The small mind of the little Constantius was easily poi- 
soned; and in March, 340, he appointed one Gregory of Cappadocia to 



28o ATHANASIUS 

displace Athanasius. Gregory, hastening to Alexandria under a strong 
escort, instigated Jews and pagans to unite with him in riot and pillage, 
and illustrated his forcible accession by a series of almost inconceivable 
atrocities. Verily, the church needed to be purged of the lingering dross 
of paganism. 

Athanasius fled with infinite difiiculty and danger into the dominion 
of Constans, one of the most dissolute of sovereigns, but a man of the most 
orthodox theories. Pope Julius received the illustrious exile with kind- 
ness and honor, and for three years Athanasius abode in the West, active 
in all good works, and the steadfast and aggressive champion of the Nicene 
Creed. That the ablest man in the church should so long live and labor 
in the West without leaving his impress for good behind him was impos- 
sible. It is not too much to say, with Farrar, that he fixed the theology of 
Rome as he established in the West the monastic practices which thereto- 
fore had flourished exclusively in the East. In 343 a council of 170 bish- 
ops met at Sardica to consider his case, but the Eastern bishops, influenced 
by the Arians, seceded and fled by night. But in 346 the pseudo bishop 
died and Constans prevailed upon Constantius to revoke the edict of ban- 
ishment. On the 2 1st of October, 346, the exile reached Alexandria. 
The city poured out hundreds of thousands of exultant men and women 
to meet him. His way was carpeted, that his feet might not touch the 
ground. The housetops were alive with multitudes who showered incense 
and flowers upon him and rent the skies with their acclamations. This 
home-coming became a proverb of joy and festivity. For five years 
Athanasius enjoyed comparative immunity from official persecution and 
personal violence, but during all these years the tongue of calumny wag- 
ged incessantly. In the year 353 Constans died and Constantius was lord 
of the reunited empire. Constantius was devoid of ability, but opulent in 
vanity. Having a mind of the narrowest compass and feeblest powers, 
wholly untrained as a thinker and incapable of discrimination, he unhap- 
pily believed himself competent to solve the profoundest questions of the- 
ology and to restore to the church by his imperial fiat its long lost peace. 
His proclivity for theology would have been amusing in a person less capa- 
ble of giving effect to his vagaries. But when this imperial Bottom thrust 
his ears into the controversy only one result could follow. The con- 
fusion was infinitely worse confounded. Constantius developed an 
insatiable appetite for verbal quibbles despite their total incomprehen- 
sibility to his feeble intellect. He delighted in calling councils and imi- 



ATHANASIUS 28 1 

tating the methods of his father. He is called a semi-Arian, and one of 
his councils in the year 356 procured the third banishment of Athanasius. 

At midnight, on the i8th of February, 356, while Athanasius and his 
people were holding a vigil service, an imperial army of 5,000 men sur- 
rounded the church, broke down the doors and poured into the building. 
Discharging flight after flight of arrows, they slew men, women and chil- 
dren alike. Many of the sacred virgins were shot down before the altar 
and heavy armed miercenaries trampled upon the bodies of the fallen as 
they marched down the aisles toward the episcopal throne where Athana- 
sius sat urging the people to prayer. He resisted every entreaty to escape 
until the church was cleared of all the congregation who were not dead or 
disabled, and then his friends seized him, and dragged him more dead 
than alive, through the disorderly soldiery to a place of safety. 

He now fled to the wilderness of Thebais. This Thebais is worthy our 
notice. It was the home of monasticism. Monasticism of the kind of 
which St. Simeon Stylites is the most striking exemplar. You will recall 
that that holy man raised in the mountains of Syria a pillar sixty feet high, 
whereon, exposed to all changes of the weather, he abode through thirty 
years of constant self-torture. On one day he was seen to bend his fore- 
head to his feet 1,244 times in succession, as we have the account from 
Gibbon. In the days of Athanasius many thousands of monks dwelt in 
the deserts of Libya and of the Thebais south of Alexandria. St. Antony, 
the friend of Athanasius, gathered a colony of five thousand who dwelt in 
fifty monasteries. On the barren island of Tabenne fourteen hundred 
hermits surrounded the Abbott Pachomius. The Egyptian city of 
Oxyrinchus was the exclusive abode of twenty thousand virgins and ten 
thousand monks, and at the end of the Fourth century, in nearly every 
part of Egypt, the monastic population was almost equal to the population 
of the cities. Monachism was born in Egypt and for centuries flourished 
there as no where else. 

I am not the apologist of monachism, but I dare afiirm that every man 
of ideal temperament and fine sensibilities, every man who values the 
spiritual above the material, who has come to realize that the world has no 
satisfactions, offers few responses to the cravings of his better nature, must 
in some measure be attracted by an institution which affcirds absolute re- 
tirement from afl^airs, and requires perfect self-abnegation and the con- 
secration of every faculty to the service of the Creator. We protestants 
are quick to condemn the system, but we will judge it more lenientlv if 



282 ATHANASIUS 

we Stop to remember how many a broken heart found rest and peace in 
the cloister in those dark ages through which the church was civihzing our 
race. During all those ages, too, the cloister was the home of philosophy, 
of literature, of art. The monasteries and the convents, despite all that 
the enemies of the church have written, were lighthouses of knowledge, of 
art and science, as well as of virtue and piety. I concede that they are not 
in accord with the genius of protestantism, that they are utterly opposed 
to the utilitarian spirit of our modern life, but I am not in accord with 
the flippant and ungenerous criticism which we so often hear. I will 
protest in any presence my admiration for the m.an or woman who is capa- 
ble of absolute devotion to an ideal, and I can not repress a degree of 
approval for an institution which incessantly wars against the animal 
man in behalf of the intellectual and spiritual man. The monks of 
Egypt eschewed all the comforts, and not a few of what to us are 
the decencies of life. They clothed themselves in rags or skins, sub- 
sisted on roots and herbs, and for shelter built rude hovels which they 
left bare and unfurnished, dwelt in the caverns of the hills and even fought 
with wild beasts of the desert for possession of their lairs. 

Into this community Athanasius fled, and if he found rough fare he 
found also true and loving hearts, and for six years he dwelt safely in the 
wilderness. Now and then he might enjoy a brief rest in some monastery, 
but most of his days were spent hiding in solitude or in swift flight from 
the tireless emissaries of his inveterate enemies. Some day I doubt not 
the genius of romance will be attracted to these six adventurous and excit- 
ing years of Athanasius among 

"Antres vast and deserts idle." 

During these trying years Athanasius found time to do probably his 
best literary work. At the end of six years Julian the Apostate was emperor 
and St. George, by some said to be the patron saint of the English, sat on the 
episcopal throne of Alexandria. This George was a reformed contractor of 
pork for the army and an exceptionally disreputable individual, and when 
the pagans of Alexandria seized him and literally kicked him to death, burned 
his body and cast his ashes into the sea, the apostate emperor contempt- 
uously allowed Athanasius to return. He remained one year, and again fled 
from the death warrant of the emperor. He returned to the wilderness, but 
remained for only a part of the year 363. Thus, four times he was ban- 
ished for his faith, and four times returned to proclaim that same faith. 



ATHANASIUS 283 

But the end was not yet. On October 5, 365, the Emperor Valens decreed 
his fifth banishment. Barely escaping with his Hfe, he hid himself for four 
months in the tomb of his father until the decree was revoked. Then all 
Alexandria, led by one of his trusted friends, went out to him, and con- 
ducted him with song and rejoicing once more to the home from which no 
ruler of the earth was ever to banish him again, but where he dwelt at last 
in peace through six years, when, in the fullness of age, after a life of un- 
equaled vicissitudes and inestimable usefulness, he was called from the 
church militant to the church triumphant. 

After all his wanderings he died at hom.e; after all his dangers and 
persecutions, he died in peace. In spite of all that the malice and falsehood 
of enemies could invent, he died honored more than any other man of his 
time. He lived to see the conspirators who had persecuted him through 
half a century pass to their reward, and to know that the cause to which 
he had given his Hfe was at last triumphant. The second great council 
of the church assembled at Constantinople eight years after his death and 
confirmed the Nicene Creed, and we to-day repeat from our prayer books 
the very words which Athanasius put there more than fifteen centuries 
ago, and in behalf of whose truth he lived a noble Hfe. 




THE TATER-BUG PARSON.* 

HE Tater-Bug meeting-house is situated in Pawpaw Hollow. 
There are a great many pawpaw hollows in name and in 
fact in East Tennessee, but this particular one is easily dis- 
tinguished. For one thing, the meeting-house is a distinguish- 
ing feature. Then it lies just to the east of the Sevierville road, a quar- 
ter of a mile beyond Dick Ballord's House (which is in the fork of the 
road), and runs right over Tuckahoe Creek. Not across the creek, 
but literally over it, for up above at Squire Keith's place Tuckahoe runs 
out of the ground, and then drives furiously right against the ridge and 
disappears, boring its way through to come out miles away on the west 
side. 

The meeting-house was originally built of logs, but the temporary 
presence of a saw mill many years ago enabled the Tater-Bugs to cover 
the logs with planks. At first the windows were ten feet long by two 
feet high, and unglazed. The shutters were of plank with strap hinges 
at the top, and were held up at meeting time by sticks of firewood. They 
extended nearly one-third the length of the building. However, when 
the sawmill came, the spirit of innovation got abroad on Tuckahoe, and, 
as Dick Ballord expressed it, "the winders was eended up" and glazed. 
It must not be understood, however, that they were made ten feet high 
and two feet wide. They were three feet and four inches high and two 
feet wide, and the glass was eight inches by ten. The glass did not last 
long. Sometimes the men and women would test its strength by a push, 
generally with disastrous results; sometimes a boy would shy a pebble 
or a hickory nut through one of the fragile panes; and once, when Dick 
Ballord's lame mule, which was always hungry, and always foraging, 
chanced upon the meeting-house, it had, in a spirit of investigation, thrust 
its head through one of the windows, thereby demolishing glass, wood- 
work and all. After this, the Tater-Bugs concluded to put shutters 
on the windows; but the public spirit had subsided and after two shutters 
had been put up, the nails had given out, and for years the finances had 
never been sufficiently recruited to justify the completion of an under- 
taking, which, it must be admitted, had not been unanimously approved. 

•"Published in VVorthinfiton's Majia/iiic, October, 1X93, by "John V. Russell." (285 ) 



286 THE TATER-BUG PARSON 

At another time it had been determined to erect a fence around the house. 
Squire Keith had given the timber, and Dick Ballord and Jake Mullins 
had agreed to spHt the rails; but just then Jake had a violent attack of 
the ^'y^ll^^^ janders" and before he recovered, it had been time to **lay 
by" the corn, and the rails were never made. In this condition the house 
and its appurtenant demesnes were left until Parson Algin came to preach 
at the Hollow. 

The Tater-Bugs were Baptists of the variety usually called "Hard- 
shell." How they got the name "Tater-Bugs" I do not know. I first 
heard it from John Dingan who married Squire Keith's cousin and lived 
on the hill between Dick Ballord's and the Squire's. They are never 
called anything else on Tuckahoe. Dingan is not a Tater-Bug himself; 
indeed I am bound to say that he appears to be entirely without religious 
affiliations or convictions, though he is called as "clever" a man as there 
is on Tuckahoe. 

When the planks were put on the meeting-house, and the windows 
"eended up" and glazed, Dingan and the Squire furnished half of the 
money and the Tater-Bugs half. A good part of the latter half was con- 
tributed by Bob Ballord, Dick's brother, who worked for Squire Keith 
for thirteen dollars a month, with "vittles an' lodgin'." 

The meetings of the Tater-Bugs were held on the fourth Sunday 
in every month, and on such other Sundays and week days as preachers 
could be found in the "settlem^n^" The regular fourth Sunday was a 
big time, as they say on Tuckahoe. The preacher, Thomas Algin, con- 
ducted the Sunday-school at 8 o'clock in the morning, "reglar meetin' " 
at 10 o'clock, "evenin' sarvice" at 2 o'clock, and a final devotional exer- 
cise at "early can'le light." 

But the biggest time was when the "pertracted meetin' " was held. 
These "pertracted" occasions, which were invariably characterized by 
a copious and reviving outpour of spiritual refreshment, occurred twice 
a year, in April and October. Sometimes the "town preacher" from 
Knoxville came up to assist. 

The town parson was a very superior man, but I have never known 
any one who would stand comparison with Algin in his own pulpit. Lar- 
kin Biggs, who was the Nestor of the Tater-bugs, voiced the sentiment 
of the community when he said that he "lowed that Tom Algin was the 
peartest man in S'vere County." Squire Keith divided with him the 
affections of Tuckahoe, but the Squire was not a Baptist, though many 



THE TATER-BUG PARSON 287 

were the devout and fervent supplications which ascended from Paw- 
paw Hollow, that the good neighbor might be led to see the error of his 
way, and seek the "salvation of his immortal parts." The Squire at- 
tended the Tater-Bug meetings because there were no Presbyterian 
meetings and he never argued with his neighbors. He had no difficulty 
in accepting for himself the doctrines of John Calvin and John Knox 
in their least mitigated form. But, believing as he did, that the truth 
and the whole truth was embodied in the Westminster confession of 
faith, he held, in common with his neighbors, a high opinion of Tom 
Algin. 

The preacher was not a native of Tuckahoe. He had first appeared 
in the country a little more than two years before the time of this history. 
His home was on the South Fork of Pigeon River. It was said he had 
come from North Carolina. He had for his charge three churches be- 
sides Pawpaw Hollow; one on Dumpling, one on Pigeon, and one away 
up on "Chucky." Between these he apportioned his time equally. He 
is a blonde with tawny hair and beard, and deep-set, deep-blue eyes, 
and is almost a perfect man physically. 

I do not say that he is highly educated. A critic might find many 
faults in his style. But criticism of that kind is unknown on Tuckahoe. 
In politics and in polemic theology the entire population is gifted and 
strong, but these consume its critical and dialectic powers. Algin's pres- 
ence is pleasing, his voice strong and musical, and if now and then his 
pronunciation is inaccurate or provincial, or his singulars and plurals 
not properly related, his discourses are sensible, and at times he is very 
impressive. Squire Keith says he is eloquent. 

When he had finished his first sermon he paused, and then said: 
"My friends, it is well for us to understand each other in the beginning. 
I hope to break the bread of life to you for many days to come, but I 
say to you frankly that unless this house is repaired, I will not preach 
in it. If you do not choose to repair it, I will have services in the open 
air when the weather permits, and when it doesn't permit, I will go home. 
It is not respectful to the Lord to meet in such a house. You will receive 
the benediction." 

The next time he came to Tuckahoe the meeting-house had under- 
gone such a change that he hardly knew it. The windows were fresh- 
glazed and shuttered, and the church yard enclosed by a substantial 
post and rail fence. The inside of the building was resplendent. It 



288 THE TATER-BUG PARSON 

had been ceiled and painted. The painting might have been unsatis- 
factory to a conventionally aesthetic eye, but on Tuckahoe taste is prim- 
itive. The color was a bright but extremely positive blue and was the 
same on walls and ceiling. The ordinary eye could hardly endure it on 
a sunshiny day, but I am sure that no pride was ever greater or more 
justifiable than that which the good, honest Tater-Bugs felt when they 
looked upon this masterpiece of decoration. It was their own taste. 
They had bought the paint with their own money, and Larkin Biggs's 
son Rad, who built wagons and painted them, had done the work. Algin 
did not know of it until it was all done; and when he first entered the 
room and felt as if he were immersed in a sea of bright blue, he cordially 
commended the improvements, and thus became radicated in the aflPec- 
tions of Tuckahoe. 

As time went on, it was noticed that Algin began to linger longer 
on Tuckahoe than at first. After a while it came to be whispered about, 
that the cause of these lingerings was Mary Hetherly, the daughter of 
Widow Hetherly. The widow was very well-to-do. Like Squire Keith, 
she was a Presbyterian, and so, of course, was her daughter. It was 
no wonder that Algin was attracted by Mary. She had never lived in 
town, and did not dress like town girls, but she was of a fair presence, 
healthy, sensible, and tolerably well educated. 

Such mechanical adjuncts of worship as organs, or even melodeons, 
had not at that day penetrated to Pawpaw Hollow. The only instru- 
ment of sacred music was the human voice. Algin could sing the good 
old hymns well enough; but he was not a trained musician, and one day 
in the midst of a stanza of "There is a fountain," a good sister in the 
congregation got them all so very high up, that when the next stanza 
was reached, the Parson attempted in vain to get down to the proper 
key. Twice he tried, but failed utterly. Several titters were audible. 
Algin was about to close his book in despair, when a rich sweet voice 
took up the tune, and carried it safely to the end, despite the sister's 
persistent falsetto. 

This was his first sight of Mary Hetherly. The introduction which 
followed grew into a cordial friendship. Presently people began to won- 
der whether it would not go further. Larkin Biggs and " 'Rayshur" 
(Horatio) Petit, the senior Tater-Bugs, ''lowed" that "hit was all right 
purvidin' Mary jined the church." This was said while 'Rayshur was 
visiting Larkin, which he did every day. "Mis' Biggs (Mis' being always 



THE TATER-BUG PARSON 289 

used on Tuckahoe for Mistress) was present, and the next time Algin 
came that way, she said to him, in the presence of all her sons and daugh- 
ters, there being many of both: "Parson, I heerd Larkin and 'Rayshur 
lowin' t'other day that you an' Mary hed sorter fixed things up." Algin 
blushed and was confused, and got away as soon as he could. It was 
noticed that after meeting he did not as usual go to dinner with Mary 
Hetherly and her mother, but accepted instead the hearty invitation 
of John Dingan. When he came a month later he greeted Mary with 
grave courtesy, but did not again speak to her. 

Things went on thus for several months. Algin never failed to pay 
his respects to the widow and her handsome daughter, but the old inti- 
macy was broken off. Mary began to treat him coolly. She came less 
frequently to the meetings, and it was noticed that usually when she 
did come she was escorted by her cousin, Washington Hickling. Wash, 
as he was called, was studying medicine with the neighborhood doctor. 
He was a bright sort of fellow, but tremendously conceited both as to 
his person and as to his intellect. His pride of profession was already 
great. It is true that having been called, in the absence of his preceptor, 
to the delicate duty of assisting a lady of the vicinage at the birth of twins, 
he had been unfortunate enough to lose both the mother and the twins; 
but he had explained the casualty in terms so learned that nobody on 
Tuckahoe knew in the least what he meant, and, therefore, it was gener- 
ally conceded that it was the fault of the mother or of the twins. And 
certainly his self-esteem suffered no abatement. 

Wash, who was very much in love with his cousin, was fully advised 
as to the extent of her worldly possessions and prospects. He had never 
liked Algin. The two were as unlike as could be, and Mary Hetherlv's 
intimacy with the Parson had begotten in the nascent Esculapius first 
a bitter jealousy, and then a positive hatred. Larkin Biggs, who is said 
on Tuckahoe to have a "long head," said to 'Rayshur about the time 
when all this occurred: *T tell ye. Wash Hickling's a bad aig. His 
pappy was a bushwhacker, an' b'longed to the gang that stole joe Keith's 
hoss. Ef Wash ain't mean he ought to be, an' I b'leve he is." 

Wash's **pappy" had been a Tater-Bug; but Wash himself made 
some claim to infidelity, believing that there was a necessary connection 
between infidelity and superior mental powers. When Algin and Mary 
began to fall apart, Wash was naturally pleased. He had the good judg- 
ment to cease his contemptuous references to "Tater-Bug parsons," and to 

19 



290 THE TATER-BUG PARSON 

devote himself assiduously to entertaining and pleasing his cousin. Mary 
was perhaps grateful, and was especially gracious to Wash in Algin's 
presence. 

Feminine nature is very much the same on Tuckahoe as elsewhere. 
The girl was very much in love with Algin, and in secret shed not a few 
tears over his apparent unfaithfulness. Wash was delighted. He went 
everywhere with Mary; and even allowed her to ride to the Stallins "in- 
fair" on his celebrated single-footing filly, an act of unprecedented gen- 
erosity, for Wash was as much noted for selfishness and stinginess as the 
filly was for single-footing. Once in a burst of enthusiasm and con- 
fidence, he declared to Rad Biggs that the little knoll under the big oak 
tree by the widow's front gate, would be a splendid site for a doctor's 
office. When Rad asked: "Gwine to put yourn thar?" he smiled know- 
ingly. 

Larkin and 'Rayshur were deeply chagrined by the course of affairs. 
They were indignant with the Parson. Mis' Biggs was a lady of large 
powers of observation and conversation, and did not fail to remark some- 
what frequently in a most pointed way, to both Larkin and 'Rayshur, 
that they "knowed a mighty sight 'bout sich things." Mis' Petit, to 
whom all the facts hereinbefore recited were fully known, efficiently 
aided Mis' Biggs in making things unpleasant for Larkin and 'Rayshur. 
The two ancient cronies began to spend much of their time at Hamilton's 
store in order to avoid the observations of their respective ladies. 

It will readily be understood therefore that they were vastly relieved 
when affairs suddenly took a turn. On the fourth Sunday in July every- 
body noticed that Parson Algin, as soon as meeting "broke," went up 
to Mary Hetherly, spoke to her very earnestly in a very low voice, and 
then walked down the road with her. She treated him coldly enough, 
but nodded assent to his request to walk with her. Everybody looked 
at everybody else, except Wash Hickling, who looked only at Mary and 
Algin. On the fourth Sunday in August the same thing occurred, except 
that the lady was perceptibly more cordial. Dr. Hickling was not at 
meeting. 

Larkin and 'Rayshur, being men of spirit, did not fail meanwhile 
to make the most of the situation, and Mis' Biggs and Mis' Petit began 
carefully to avoid a subject which a little while before had occupied much 
of their time. The daily meetings on Larkin's porch were resumed. 
The ladies at first hoped that things might change again, but when the 



THE TATER-BUG PARSON 29 1 

Parson came and spent a week on Tuckahoe and went every day to the 
widow's they felt that they were hoping against hope. Mis' Biggs, with very 
ill-assumed indifference, ventured one afternoon to ask 'Rayshur when 
the "merridge was gwine to be?" Larkin and 'Rayshur laughed so 
outrageously, however, that the good lady retired in confusion and anger. 

The summer wore away and September came and passed and all 
Tuckahoe, as Larkin put it, "was cleanin' up an' rollin' pie crust," pre- 
paratory to the "big meetin'." It was late in the afternoon. The Misses 
Biggs were out by the wood-pile milking. Their mother was standing on 
the chopping-log with her arms akimbo, calling the hogs. Calling the 
hogs consisted in expanding her lungs to their utmost capacity and then 
uttering with their full strength a long-drawn sonorous cry which could be 
heard for miles away — "Pigoo-pigoo-oo-oooo." This was immediately 
followed by three short guttural porcine grunts, "peeg, peeg, peeg." 
These last were intended for such porkers as were at hand; the long- 
drawn and ear-splitting "pigoo" for such as had taken themselves, as 
some of Larkin's pigs would, to Hamilton's or Hickman's field. Mis' 
Biggs paused to take breath, and looking down the road, saw Larkin 
actually running. 

"Lordy, massy," she gasped, "Look at that ole simpleten. Larkin 
Biggs, stop; you'll get asmy or palpytation, shore. Stop, you fool, what 
on airth is the matter?" 

Larkin sat down on the wood-pile and tried to refill his exhausted 
lungs. For a time it seemed as if he would never succeed. Mis' Biggs 
seized the corners of her check apron and fanned him vigorously. 

When he was able to speak, his first words were: 

"Ther Parson's merried!" 

"Land sakes," cried his wife. "Air you crazy, Larkin? When wuz 
they merried ?" 

"Ten y-years 'go," wheezed Larkin. 

"Ten years ago," screamed Mis' Biggs. "Do you think I'm a born'd 
eejit, Larkin Biggs, to b'leve that Mary Hetherly was merried ten years 
ago?" 

"I don't mean her," cried Larkin, getting his wind. "He's got a 
wife in No'th Carliny." 

Mis' Biggs could not find words. She threw up both hands with a 
gesture of despair. Her daughters exhausted the exclamatory vocab- 
ulary of Tuckahoe. The old lady had to sit down. Larkin silently en- 



292 THE TATER-BUG PARSON 

joyed the sensation he had created. When his wife had gotten her wits 
together, she demanded with asperity: 

'*Who tole ye sich a thing, Larkin?" 

"Wash HickHng's got a letter from No'th CarHny, telHn' all about 
it — and," added he, with the most cold-blooded and provoking delibera- 
tion, "the letter says he d'sarted her, and that he killed a man!" 

Mis' Biggs rose and without a word started towards the Petit's. 

"Ye needn't go," cried Larkin, "case 'Rayshur heerd it soon as I did." 
She turned back reluctantly, declaring: 

"I alius knowed there was sump'n curus with Tom Algin, but none 
o' ye would ever b'leeve me. Now say your mammy don't know best." 

It was almost as Larkin said. Dr. Wash Hickling was not the man 
to allow a handsome bride with a comfortable dowry to be wrenched 
from his grasp without a struggle. Seeing the imminency of such a 
catastrophe, he had set his wits to work, and had conceived the plan 
of investigating the Parson's antecedents. He had rightly surmised 
that Algin must have been a man of mark wherever he had previously 
lived, and was likely therefore to have made both a record and enemies. 
A little cautious inquiry had been sufficient to ascertain the preacher's 
former place of residence. A letter to the postmaster had been returned 
with references to certain "leading citizens." These leading citizens 
had in turn received communications signed W. Hickling, M.D., and 
requesting information as to the character of one Thomas Algin, who 
was alleged to be making overtures for a "matrimonial alliance," with 
a near and dear relative of the writer. One of these letters had been 
answered, and on this answer Wash rested his case. 

On Monday he had been at French's "still house." The beverage 
had been particularly fresh and enticing, and Wash had yielded to its 
blandishments more than was his prudent custom; for, except vanity, 
selfishness, and covetousness, he had no apparent vices. As he returned 
home he had found Larkin, 'Rayshur, and other leisurely disposed per- 
sons to a considerable number, at Hamilton's store. Larkin had with 
obvious malice inquired whether or not it was true that Algin and Mary 
were to be married Christmas Eve. 'Rayshur had chuckled, and the 
others had grinned, and Wash, instigated by the liquor, had produced 
and read his letter. The crowd had listened with bated breath as the 
startling words were read, charging the popular preacher with having 
deserted his wife without cause, and having been indicted for a felonious 
assault upon an unoffending man. 



THE TATER-BUG PARSON 293 

The reading finished, Wash had ridden away homeward without 
a word. His auditors had speedily dispersed. There would be plenty 
of time to talk afterwards. At the time each one had felt it to be his 
solemn duty to give currency to the astounding news. 

That night Tuckahoe began to ferment. Larkin, in his capacity of 
senior and principal gossip, held a levee. An armful of pine knots was 
piled beside the chimney, and fed a cheerful blaze in the big fireplace. 
'Rayshur had the place of honor for the evening. All the neighbors 
"drapped in," A pungent haze of tobacco smoke from the pipes of both 
sexes pervaded the room. Everybody was comfortable. They all liked 
Algin, but on Tuckahoe news was news. Of course everybody was 
sorry; but very many like Mis' Biggs had had their doubts, as it now 
appeared. Larkin sighed deeply, as he again and again performed the 
hospitable duty of reciting to new comers the contents of the letter. 
It was unanimously agreed that the men of the congregation should 
meet on Wednesday and determine what course the church should adopt. 
On Wednesday they met. A committee was appointed to wait upon 
Algin, as soon as he came, and demand an explanation. Larkin mean- 
while began to be troubled in his mind. His former distrust of Hickling 
returned. As he sat on the porch with 'Rayshur that afternoon, he said: 

'T never seen sich a important set o' fellers. Bob Byers and Hub 
Hickman couldn't a felt bigger ef they'd bin a runnin' of a circus." Bob 
Byers, Hub Hickman, Bob Ballord, Tobe Keziah, and Larkin were the 
Deacons, and upon their official shoulders rested the weight of the emer- 
gency. 

As usual the Deacons decided to call in their influential neighbors. 
Squire Keith and John Dingan. By their advice a letter setting out 
the charges was sent by Wednesday's mail to Algin. Unfortunately, 
the Parson had gone down to Knoxville, and did not receive the letter. 
Neither did he come Saturday afternoon, according to his custom. He did 
not make his appearance until Sunday morning, after Sunday-school was 
over. The women were all in the house, while the men stood in groups 
about the yard discussing the absorbing topic. Squire Keith and Dingan 
were at the head of the lane, consulting with the Deacons. Algin was 
to be told everything as soon as he arrived. 

"Ef so be he's guilty," said Larkin, "none on us don' want no more 
preachin' from him, and ef he aint, we want t' know it." 

It was almost "meetin' time" when Algin came riding slowly down 



294 THE TATER-BUG PARSON 

the road. Seeing the committee standing at the head of the lane, he 
dismounted and shook hands with them. The grave and unwonted 
formahty of their greeting did not seem to attract his attention. His 
manner was unchanged. When the handshaking was over, an awk- 
ward silence fell upon the party. Algin looked at the others and they 
looked at him. He was undisturbed, but they were obviously excited, 
except Squire Keith, who continued to chew his tobacco with his habitual 
serenity. Larkin was the first to find his voice. Turning to Keith, he said : 

"Squire, s'posin' you jist tell th' Parson." Thereupon the Squire, 
in a few words and very kindly, told Algin what their mission was. 

Algin heard him without a word, without any indication of surprise. 
When the Squire had done, he said : 

"I knew what you were going to say. I have just come from Mrs. 
Hetherly's and have discussed this matter fully with them." 

"What'd they say?" exclaimed Larkin, carried away by his ruling 
passion, and edging up to Algin. 

The Parson smiled and continued: 

"If Hickling is not here I wish you would send for him." 

"He's standin' on tother side of the house," said Dingan. "Wait 
a minnit an' I'll bring him." 

Up at the church excitement ran high. Mis' Biggs whispered to Mis' 
Petit and Mis' Stallins, that she was "plum fidgetty." The men were 
all outside, and the women were straining their necks looking out at the 
windows and doors. As Dingan passed through the crowd of men he 
was repeatedly interrogated as to "how he tuck it," etc. Declining to 
make any answer, he found Hickling and delivered his message. 
Dr. Hickling was surprised, and for once in his life was at a loss what 
to say. He had discovered that he had delivered his blow prematurely, 
and had been engaged for three days in manufacturing opinion against 
Algin, and not without success. He had not expected to be compelled 
to confront the accused, but the eyes of the crowd were upon him, and 
he was bound to go. By the time they had crossed the yard, his self-pos- 
session was restored, and he greeted the committee in his wonted profes- 
sional manner. 

"Good morning, gentlemen; good morning. Parson." 

They all nodded and said "Morning, Doctor," except Algin, who 
was hitching his horse. The minister tied the slip knot to his satisfac- 
tion, and turning to Wash said: 



THE TATER-BUG PARSON 295 

"I understand, Dr. Hickling, that you have a letter from North Caro- 
lina, charging me with having a wife in that State, whom I have deserted, 
and also charging me with an attempt to commit murder. I will admit 
that I did leave my wife, and that I did strike a man with the purpose 
of killing him. Now will you let me see the letter?" 

His auditors looked at one another in consternation. He had said 
all this with perfect calmness. Larkin "fidgetted" and Squire Keith 
knitted his brows and cut off more tobacco. Hickling replied loftily: 

"Since you admit the charge, Mr. Algin, it is not necessary to show 
the letter," and with this he started away. 

Algin, however, stepped quickly in front of him, and said in the same 
measured tones, but with a red spot on either cheek: 

"Wait a moment. I desire you to let Squire Keith see the date of 
that letter." 

"That's fair, Wash, let's see it," said the Squire, holding out his hand. 

Hickling, with reluctance, drew the letter from his pocket and opened 
it so as to show the date. 

"September 2d," said the Squire. 

"And it is written by Joseph Raines, Attorney-at-Law," said Algin. 

"It is, sir," replied Wash, stiffly. 

"And now," said Algin, "as I understand, I am charged by you with 
the purpose of marrying Miss Hetherly, while I have a wife living in 
North Carolina, after having deserted my wife, and having tried to com- 
mit murder!" 

Hickling nodded. Algin had drawn a folded newspaper from his pocket. 

"Squire," he said, "will you look at the date and name of this paper? 

The Squire took the paper and read aloud: 

"The Cooseta Weekly Messenger, July 15, 18 — ." 

"Now," said Algin, "will you read the item marked in blue pencil 
on the first page?" 

The Squire read again: 

"Died at her home at seven o'clock yesterday morning, after a linger- 
ing illness, Helen Sanders, wife of Thomas Algin." 

"Well," said Hickling, with a sneer, "that proves that your wife died 
after you deserted her, that's all." 

Algin by an effort controlled himself, and said: 

"Will you be good enough to tell me whether anything is said in the 
letter about her death?" 



296 THE TATER-BUG PARSON 

Hickling finally replied: 

"No, there aint." 

Thereupon Algin stood aside, and Wash passed on towards the church. 
Algin drew a roll of money from his pocket, and said: 

"Gentlemen, we will have no services today; but I have a favor to 
ask. I wish some of you, or all of you, to go to Cooseta and investigate 
this matter for yourselves. As I make the request I will defray the ex- 
penses. You can go and come in a week, and I will meet you here this 
day week." 

So saying he thrust the money into Larkin's hands and was gone 
before the old man could object. He held the greenbacks in his hands 
and looked helplessly around at his companions. The Squire held out 
his hand and Larkih gave him the money. He counted it carefully. 

"One hundred dollars," he said. 

"I guess we don't need the Parson's money. Here, John, you keep 
this and give it back to him. We can pay our own expenses." 

So saying he produced a venerable, very slick, but plethoric leather 
wallet, tied with an old piece of hame string. Carefully opening it 
he extracted from it five twenty dollar bills, and gave them to Larkin. 

"Now, Larkin," he said, "you and John start tomorrow, and when 
you get there go to the bottom of this thing. You are old, but you are 
not a fool, and if John aint got as much sense as you have, he's younger." 
John laughed. 

"But I aint got no ridin' boss," said Larkin, "an it's mighty fur." 

"What do you want with a horse?" exclaimed the Squire. "Why, 
man, you must go in the cars." 

Larkin trembled with excitement. 

"Ride on a steam ingin all the way to No'th Carliny. Lord! you 
don't mean it. Squire; why, Betsy wouldn't never let me do it." 

"Yes she will," said John, "I'll take keer of ye." 

When the meeting "broke up" Larkin hastened to communicate 
the momentous intelligence to Betsy. They were going down the lane. 
When she heard it she raised her hands and cried: 

"Larkin Biggs!" 

The neighbors all stopped and many of them hastened to inquire 
what was the matter. Betsy was breathless with amazement. Presently 
she recovered and gasped: 

"He says he's goin' to No'th Carliny on the railroad kyars." 



THE TATER-BUG PARSON 297 

"Lordy massy!" exclaimed Mis' Petit. The other ladies present 
also exclaimed variously. 

A considerable crowd, most of whom had never been in the cars, 
escorted Larkin home, and all the way the discussion was animated. 
The result was to reduce the old man to a distressing state of uncertainty 
and apprehension. He went to Dingan again and earnestly besought 
his most candid judgment. John spoke so strongly that he greatly allayed 
his fears, and Betsy with many sighs and shakings of her head 
and not a few audible misgivings began to pack his saddle-bags. 
They were to start the next morning. That night at family prayers 
Larkin prayed long and earnestly for guidance and for safety on his 
perilous journey. Let all laugh who please, the danger was, to the old 
man, very real, and his faith was such that he arose from his knees re- 
signed and comforted. 

The nearest station was twenty miles distant. When John and Lar- 
kin departed at daybreak, in John's spring wagon, not less than fifty of 
the neighbors were present to see them off. Betsy embraced Larkin, 
shedding some natural tears. When they had gone fifty yards, she 
shouted : 

"The bottle o' whiskey and cheery bark, and the saltpeter fur azmy, 
and the taller fur yur boots is in the side that ain't got no holes in it." 

Larkin waved his hand and they disappeared over the hill. The next 
week was the longest Tuckahoe had ever known. The wheels of in- 
dustry stood still and the people did nothing but talk and surmise. 
Larkin and John got back Saturday night, and Sunday witnessed an 
unprecedented gathering at the Hollow. The church would hardly hold 
the people. They came from the head-waters of Dumpling and from 
beyond French Broad. The committee met Algin at the mouth of the 
lane. Before any of them could speak, he said: 

"Gentlemen, I don't know what you have concluded, but I wish 
the people to know the facts. I wish you to state to the congregation 
the facts, just as you have found them. I will wait here." 

Larkin went up to him and silently shook his hand. Then the com- 
mittee went up to the church. Larkin, being a deacon, was spokesman. 
In East Tennessee all men are public speakers. Larkin, barring grammar 
and pronunciation, was a very good one and Tuckahoe prefers facts to 
accomplishments. A brother opened the meeting with prayer, and then 
Larkin rose. Tuckahoe listened as never before, ihe old man was not 
a little agitated. 



298 THE TATER-BUG PARSON 

"Bretheren and Sisteren," he said, "You all know what s bin said 
'bout our Parson. We all want to do him jestice. I've bin to No'th 
Carliny on the steam kyars" (this was said with great humility). "We 
foun' whar th' Parson hed lived. His pappy and his mammy live thar 
yit. His pappy is wuth forty thousan' dollars." (Here there was a sen- 
sation.) Larkin, evidently pleased, continued: 

"His pappy edicated him fur a lawyer. He run off when he wuz a 
boy an' jined the rebel army (another sensation, for Tuckahoe is intensely 
loyal)." 

"He cum back an' sot up his offis. They had a clost nabor by the 
name ur Sanders, who hed a darter, which wuz said ter be th' finest 
lookin' woman in thet settlem^n^. Th' Parson fell in love with her. Her 
name wuz Helen, wuzn't it, John.?" 

John nodded. 

"Thar wuz a young feller thar, a lawyer too, he wuz in love with th' 
Sanders gal, jist like th' Parson, and thar wuz right smart ambishun 
atwixt 'em. Ther Parson he merried her an' tuck her to live in a big 
white house on er farm that his pappy had give him. Ther nex' day 
atter that th' Parson he went away, and wuzn't never seed thar fur five 
year. 

Larkin paused. The congregation was seething with excitement. 
Even Squire Keith was stirred and motioned Larkin to go on. 

"Afore he lef,' tho', he gave a warran?^^ deed t' his farm t' his wife, 
and paid th' register's fees. Ever-body wundered what he done so fur. 
His pappy went ter see his wife and she wouldn't talk at fust, but atter 
a while she up and tole him she didn't keer nothin' fer th' Parson, but 
loved t'other feller, ther one I said loved her, by the name o' Raines, and 
her pa an' ma made her merry th' Parson caze his fokes wuz rich. Ther 
Parson he went, — whar wuz it, John .?" 

"Australy," replied John, as he pulled out his handkerchief, and 
began to blow his nose suspiciously. 

"Yes, that are the place. They say its furder'n Arkinsaw er Texis. 
He staid thar five year, and she lived in his house, an' t'other feller wuz 
always a sparkin' her. She tried ter git a divoce, but th' jedge sed she 
shudn't hev ary divoce." 

By this time many of the women were crying. Not so Betsy Biggs. 
She was indignant and showed it by speaking out in meeting. 

"Ther impedent hussy!" she exclaimed. 



THE TATER-BUG PARSON 299 

"Hol' on, Betsy, I ain't done yit," said Larkin gravely. "Atter 
five year th* Parson he cum back. They say he wuz a plum sight, 
an' didn' seem to keer nuthin' about nuthin.' He went ter his 
pappy's, an' one day he tole his mammy he's goin' over onct more ter 
see th' place what he hed give his wife. His mammy she seed him agoin' 
an' follered him. He quiled down in a thicket and laid thar a watchin' 
th' house. Trectly he seed a man an' a woman cum out. It wuz his 
wife an' thet feller Raines. They cum down th' road. His mammy 
she wuz hidin' furder back an' she seed what I'm goin' ter tell ye. They 
cum a walkin' clost ter whar th' Parson wuz. Thar they cum to a halt. 
She wuz sayin' suthin' an' then he b'gun ter take ther name o' the Lord 
in vain. They heerd him way whar they wuz. Then she fell down Hke 
she wuz a prayin', and then he hit her an' knocked her down, an' stunted 
her, — an' her a woman!" 

Larkin stopped, and Betsy, excited beyond measure, screamed: 

"What ye stoppin' fer, Larkin? What ye stoppin' fer?" 

Her husband rebuked her with a look, and went on: 

"Then th' Parson he riz out'n ther bushes an clum over th' fence at 
one jump. He hed a hickory walkin' stick. He run up ter Raines an' 
slapped him over. Raines he drawed er pistil an' shot one shoot at th' 
Parson ez he got up. Ther bullet broke th' Parson's left arm." 

Larkin raised his voice as he continued. "Then th' Parson he tuck 
his stick an' beat him tell he hollered agin an' agin, then th' Parson tuck 
him with one han' an' flung him over ther fence, then his mammy she 
cum an' tuck him way. An' (continued the speaker, growing still more 
animated and raising his right arm) ef I'd bin ther Parson, nigh onter 
seventy year ole ez I am, I b'leeve I'd a done wuss'n th' Parson done then 
an' thar, an' thet ther Lord would a firgive me." 

"Me too," exclaimed John Dingan, and all over the house the men 
cried out, "me too," and the women applauded them. 

"Thet's all," said Larkin, dropping his voice, "'ceptin' thet th' Parson 
wuz errested for tryin* ter kill th' feller. Ther judge an' th' jury wudn't 
heer no evidence fum th' Parson, but sed he done jist right, an' I sez so too." 
"Ez fer ther woman, she died las' summer afore th' Parson axed Mary 
Hetherly ter marry him, an' her pappy an' mammy is livin' now on ther 
land th' Parson give her." 

Larkin sat down exhausted. There was perfect silence; the women 
dryed their tears, as the Squire motioned to Bob Ballord, and the two 



300 THE TATER-BUG PARSON 

left the house. In a few minutes they came up the aisle having Parson 
Algin between them. 

Not a soul stirred. He went up into the pulpit and the services went 
on as usual. After the benediction every one sat still and the silence was 
oppressive. The Parson started to come down. Then Betsy rose from 
her seat and went swiftly up the aisle. The Parson stopped. She went 
right on up into the pulpit and put her arms about his neck and kissed 
him, and cried over him, and said she hoped the Lord would bless him. 
The strong man cried like a child and held her rough, honest hand tightly 
in his, while all the congregation crowded around him and showered 
upon him words of comfort and of blessing. 




THE BAR OF THE SOUTH.* 

*'/« America there are no nobles, or literary men, and the people are apt to 
mistrust the wealthy; lawyers consequently form the highest political class 
and the most cultivated circle of society.^* 

HESE words, which would seriously offend our national pride if 
uttered now, are taken from De Tocqueville's Democracy in 
America, a book which, in its time, was highly esteemed and 
of great authority; but it is now almost forgotten, and in the 
America of to-day, teeming with ''literary" men and women, the passage 
is as obsolete and as much calculated to excite amusement as Sidney 
Smith's famous question about American books and pictures. But when 
it was written it was perhaps, as nearly true as the average generalization, 
a comprehensive qualification in view of the extent to which this country, 
and especially the South, has suffered from the generalizations of philo- 
sophic, philanthropic and corrective commentators. The statement was 
not unqualifiedly true, because from the days of Captain John Smith we have 
never been entirely without literary men. It was incorrect also in that it 
failed to take into account as ''cultivated" the clergymen and teachers, all 
more or less "literary,"who from the first were conspicuous and influential 
in America. In so far as the particular matters with which the French 
philosopher dealt in his book were concerned, his statement was correct, 
because the preachers and teachers usually did not take part actively in 
pubHc affairs. The position of the lawyers in the South was in no respect 
different from their position in the North, their influence arising from the 
same causes and having the same limitations in both sections. That is to 
say, as education, intelligence, and competency in public affairs have ad- 
vanced among men of other occupations, the influence of the lawyers has 
correspondingly decreased. This must be taken with the modification that 
as the lawyer deals with a subject which requires special knowledge, and, 
as that subject is one of great importance, and one that constantly and to 
an unusual degree attracts the public attention, the prominence of the 
lawyer is greater than his intellectual superiority to men of other calling 
alone could produce. This last fact is illustrated by the continuing promi- 
nence of lawyers in England and in those parts of the United States where 
the people are best educated and most attentive to public concerns. At 

*The South in the Building of tlic Nation, Vol. Vll. ( 301 ) 



302 THE BAR OF THE SOUTH 

this time in our own country, the classes of greatest prominence and great- 
est influence are the very rich; the very learned in all branches of knowledge; 
the greater educators, such as college presidents, the writers, and the 
lawyers. The clergy even more than the lawyers have suffered, tempo- 
rarily at least, a distinct loss of position in recent years, but this is less 
true, perhaps, in the South than in any other part of the country. There 
are fewer very rich men, fewer authors, fewer great institutions of learning 
in the South than in some other sections of the country; and, to the extent 
that this is true, the lawyers continue to be relatively more prominent and 
more influential. 

The first century of the life of our country was a period of political devel- 
opment and adjustment, and that fact alone would have made the legal pro- 
fession of especial prominence, even if the diff*usion of culture had been more 
general. Whatever the causes may have been, the fact is indisputable that, 
down to the Civil War, the attention and the intelligence of the South were 
directed mainly to pubHc questions, and that condition has continued, 
though in steadily lessening degree, until the present time. For the last 
thirty years the profession has been losing its monoply of public attention 
and of public aflPairs. It is very common to hear the speakers in the cam- 
paign of education, which is now going on in the South, say that for- 
merly the center of life in every community was the court house, but now it 
is the school house. The change is precisely such as has occurred in other 
parts of the country and the statement contains much truth. We must 
not conclude, however, that the lawyer is in the way of losing position en- 
tirely; for, obviously, that can never occur in the South or in any other 
part of the country. In every law-making body the lawyer is still domi- 
nant, except, perhaps, in matters of economic legislation, despite all that is 
said of the invasion of such bodies by men of wealth, and to a large extent 
this must continue to be true of necessity, because the time will never come 
when the lawyer will not be needed in making as well as in administering 
the laws. While it is true that the prominence of the legal profession in 
the South is attributable to the same general causes that gave it influence 
elsewhere in America in the early days, it is also a fact that these causes were 
more persistent in the South than in the North. The rolls of the Continen- 
tal Congresses contain the names of many learned and capable lawyers, but 
the distinctively American lawyer was the product of conditions succeeding 
the Revolution. The great crisis did not make demands exclusively upon 
any one class of men. 



THE BAR OF THE SOUTH 303 

Washington, Franklin and Hancock were not lawyers, and Jefferson's 
renown and influence were never dependent in any degree upon his pro- 
ficiency at the bar or upon his attainments as a student of the municipal 
law. Independence, changed conditions, new institutions made the oppor- 
tunities and created the necessity for the American lawyer. The pecul- 
iar genius of Marshall would have had but little chance for development 
in an English colony, for his gift was in the Hne of what we may call con- 
structive jurisprudence. And this same capacity to apply the principles 
of English law to new conditions, to adapt them to the requirements of 
new institutions, to reject the common law and the Westminster decisions 
when necessary, and sometimes, to make new law without the aid of 
legislation, was the distinguishing characteristic of nearly all our great 
lawyers for half a century after the Revolution. This process of legal and 
institutional evolution and innovation was less obstructed in the younger 
than in the older communities. The freer life of the new West and South- 
west encouraged progress and change. Therefore in the younger com- 
munities the lav^er found his best opportunities and was most in demand. 
The most important or, certainly, the most radical, legal and institutional 
changes have, as a rule, had their origins in the younger States. They led 
the way in abolishing property qualifications for voting and holding office; 
they have made the most important modifications of the township system; 
some have extended the suffrage to women; some have adopted the referen- 
dum and the initiative, while the very latest Western State constitution has 
startled the conservatives by its daring innovations. A century ago Ten- 
nessee and Kentucky were the West, and when Tennessee adopted her first 
constitution in 1796, Mr. Jefferson declared that it was the most dem- 
ocratic of the sixteen state constitutions then in existence. 

In building new institutions the lawyers were indispensable, and many 
men eminent in the profession followed the frontier southward or west- 
ward, and were the makers of laws and institutions successively for new 
communities as they reached the point where civil organizations became 
necessary. John Haywood, probably the most learned lawyer, and one of the 
most scholarly men in the Southwest at the beginning of the 19th century, 
was a judge first in North Carolina and then in Tennessee. Wm. C. C. 
Claiborne was a leader in Tennessee and then in Louisiana. William 
Cocke went from Virginia to the Watauga country, then in North Caro- 
lina but now in Tennessee, in the last quarter of the i8th century, served 
in the legislatures of Virginia and North Carolina, aided in founding the 



304 THE BAR OF THE SOUTH 

republic, so called, of Transylvania, was a leader in the short lived state of 
Franklin, a judge and United States Senator in Tennessee, and at last one 
of the foremost men in the Mississippi territory. Probably no other 
American participated in the making of so many constitutions or repre- 
sented so many constituencies. 

Just so soon as a community became sufficiently settled and secure for 
civil rights to become matters of concern, the lawyers came and took 
charge. In the Southwest the Indian wars were succeeded quickly by 
strife, som.etimes hardly less sanguinary, over land titles, and the lawyers 
reaped rich harvests of fees and of political preferments. Just about the 
period of greatest progress, in the "flush times" of the Southwest, came the 
panic of 1837 and everybody and everything got into court. But this was 
only an additional and temporary source of influence. No sooner had 
the Federal Constitution been adopted than grave questions of con- 
struction arose, demanding knowledge of the law for their determination. 
The combative spirit of the frontier delighted in politics, and, as there were 
very few newspapers, the orator becam.e a mighty power. Never was 
public speech so much in demand, never was the public speaker so much 
admired or so influential, and nearly always he was a lawyer. It was also 
to the great benefit of the lawyers that the combativeness of the frontiers- 
man made him a ready and persistent litigant, while his want of training 
in business was a prolific source of contention. 

It is to the credit of the Southern people that they esteemed not only 
the speaking lawyers, but also the learned lawyers, for it happened frequently 
that the oratorical advocate was not a profound jurist. No one ever put 
Patrick Henry and John Marshall as lawyers in the same class. The law 
was, as it is yet, essentially an esotoric science, and substantial acquire- 
ments in it were sure guarantees of public admiration. The old South 
until the Civil War was rural, and population was dispersed far more than 
in the least populous parts of the North. The Virginia, Carolina or Ala- 
bama planter lived isolated in the midst of his spreading plantation,- and 
came in contact with his fellows mainly at the remote church on occasional 
Sunday mornings and at the remoter court house on Saturdays and court 
days. Conditions were unfavorable to the creation of a literature, and all 
the books were written in the North. Southern men universally regarded 
public service! as the^most honorable of pursuits and the bar as the 
avenue to such service. Sons of the rich and prominent families frequently 
turned to the law, and there were few members of the profession who did 



THE BAR OF THE SOUTH 305 

not expect and seek office. There were a few public men who were not 
lawyers, as for instance Andrew Johnson and Wm, G. Brownlow, of 
Tennessee, but a list of the prominent men of the South down to 1861 
would be mainly a roll of attorneys. In i860 the Southern leaders were, in 
Virginia, such men as Hunter, Mason, Wise and John Tyler; in North 
Carolina, Vance and Clingman; in Georgia, Toombs, Stephens and Cobb; 
in South Carolina, Rhett, Chesnutt and Barnwell; in Alabama, Yancey, 
Walker and Clay; in Tennessee, Nicholson, Bell, Harris, Johnson; in 
Mississippi, Davis, Lamar and Barksdale; in Arkansas, Pike, Garland and 
Rector; in Texas, Sam Houston, Reagan and Wigfall; in Florida, Yulee, 
Mallory and Morton; in Louisana, Slidell, Benjamin and John A. Camp- 
bell. These were nearly all lawyers and they are not a tithe of the mem- 
bers of the profession in the South who were of national reputation and 
large influence. 

The final attitude of the South upon the great constitutional question 
which divided the sections was determined in large measure by Jefferson 
and Madison, and in much larger measure by Mr. Calhoun. Of the 
active and efficient advocates of State's rights just before the war, the most 
conspicuous were Rhett, of South Carolina, and Yancey, of Alabama. The 
lawyers of the South led in the secession movement, as they had led for 
seventy-five years in all public aff^airs. If we look as far back as the 
second quarter of the 19th century the great names are Jackson, Polk, 
Houston, Pinckney, John Marshall, Calhoun, Hayne, Grundy, King, 
Crawford. Always it is the lawyers. 

The literature of the South before the war was produced in large part by 
the lawyers. Mr. Calhoun was an author of no little merit, and Jefferson and 
Madison are among the foremost writers of the country on political science. 
John Marshall wrote a life of Washington; and there were many contribu- 
tions by lawyers to the literature of political controversy. Jere Clemens, of 
Alabama, wrote novels which were read fifty years ago, and Judge Long- 
street was the author of Georgia Scenes, of which he was much ashamed, 
not dreaming that it was to become a classic. 

A fact of the greatest importance is that the profession corrected cer- 
tain inevitable tendencies toward aristocracy in the South. The bar was 
attainable by every aspiring young man, and success waited upon intelli- 
gence, probity and industry. The young man of the humblest origin 
came to the bar and succeeded if he had the capacity; and it happened not 

infrequently that the sons of poor and obscure men rose to the highest 

20 



306 THE BAR OF THE SOUTH 

positions. There can be no better illustrations of this than Andrew Jack- 
son and Henry Clay. 

It was due thus very largely to the influence of the bar that while the 
South indisputably presented certain features of aristocracy, it was essen- 
tially democratic. Nowhere in the country was merit more certain of re- 
ward, or ability more promptly recognized without regard to considera- 
tions of birth or fortune, and the dominant sentiment in the South, not- 
withstanding the institution of slavery, was not genuinely an imperfect local 
institution, but intensely democratic. Mr. Lincoln's birth was not more 
obscure, or his early life harder, than that of Andrew Jackson — not 
much more than that of Henry Clay. The legal profession attracted and 
encouraged talent very much as the church did in the Middle Ages and 
with very much the same result. It was the bulwark of thorough 
Americanism and pure democracy. 

It is not true, as so often asserted, that there were only two classes of 
whites in the South, the aristocrats and the "trash.' The aristo- 
crats, so named, the old families of large landed estates, were compara- 
tively few in number; and the "poor white trash" less numerous than is 
generally believed. The great body of Southern whites did not belong to 
either class, but were plain, average, middle class people, intelligent, of 
sound morals, independent and patriotic. There was probably no part 
of the South where this good element of population was not in the 
majority. It furnished many of the more prominent lawyers, and, by its 
numerical strength, enforced a regard for itself which sometimes degener- 
ated into demagogy. 

Nothing could be more absurd than the conception of the South as the 
home of a domineering, haughty, slaveholding aristocracy, without any 
other white population than the "crackers" and the mountaineers, to whom 
recent fiction has assigned so many and such impossible varieties of un- 
couth speech. That the rich slaveholders had an influence dispropor- 
tionate to their numbers, such as wealth always gives, is true of course; 
but the middle class of respectable and intelligent whites, often slave- 
holders to a limited extent, but in no degree aristocratic in fact or in pre- 
tense, was everywhere in the majority, and it was from this class that the 
bar was most largely recruited. Moreover, the aristocratic element owed 
its indisputable prominence not more to wealth and family standing than 
to the ability and personal worth of the men whom it put forward as its 
representatives. That the Southern aristocracy was composed as a rule 



THE BAR OF THE SOUTH 307 

of men of high character and of honorable pride is true; but it is also true 
that it was not only limited in influence and restrained from excesses, but 
spurred to greater exertions by competition with the more numerous plain 
people; and the principal or at least the most conspicuous field of endeavor 
and of honorable rivalry was the bar. It is only just to add that the aris- 
tocracy in turn by its intelligence, moral worth, and high standards of 
conduct exercised a strong and valuable influence upon all other elements 
of population. 

Let us examine the antecedents of a few of the great Southern lawyers 
and political leaders. If we leave out Washington, the most conspicuous 
names in the old South are Jefferson, Clay, Jackson and Calhoun. Not 
one of these was of Cavalier blood, or, strictly speaking, of the aristo- 
cratic class. Jefferson was, in part, Scotch-Irish, in part Welsh, without 
pride of lineage, and intolerant of aristocracy. Jackson's birth was so 
obscure that there is dispute as to where he was born. Clay was popu- 
larly known as "the mill boy of the slashes." Calhoun was of plain, good 
Scotch-Irish descent. His mother's family came to America not more than 
forty years before the Revolution, a part of the Covenanter migration in 
search of civil and religious liberty. William H. Crawford, of Georgia, 
the rival of Jackson and John Quincy Adams, was a poor boy, 
and began his career as a school teacher. William R. King, Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States, was of a plain but good North Carolina family. 
William Wirt, of Virginia, was born of a Swiss father and a German mother, 
and was too poor to obtain a college education. Sam Houston was of a 
frontier Scotch-Irish family. These are sufficient illustrations of the fact 
that the bar of the South contained from the first many eminent men who 
were not in an} sense aristocratic by descent or in sentiment. It is a fact 
that there were many of the richer and more powerful families, but the South- 
ern lawyers, who were almost invariably the Southern leaders, were not all or 
mainly members of what is called the aristocracy, and the bar with its un- 
restricted opportunities for talent and merit was therefore an efficient cor- 
rective of undemocratic tendencies. 

The opposition of the South to liberal constructions of the Constitution 
was inherited from the great Virginia statesmen of the first period of our 
history; but it was kept alive and strengthened, not only by sectional differ- 
ences upon that point, but also by the strong democratic opinions of its 
lawyer leaders. It is not necessary to my present purpose that I should 
demonstrate or even assert that this attitude of the profession was due to 



308 THE BAR OF THE SOUTH 

the influence of the plain people in its ranks. Neither is it within my 
province to consider whether the tendency was right or wrong. I am con- 
cerned only to show the influence of the bar on Southern thought and 
life, and I affirm with confidence that the proverbial conservatism of the 
South is largely a result of the leadership of lawyers, a class that in all free 
countries has been zealous in support of the written law. 

This fact of the conservatism of the bar is of the first importance, be- 
cause it accounts in large measure for the course of the South in politics 
from the adoption of the Constitution to 1861 and has had not a little to do 
with the direction of events since the Civil War. 

Another fact worthy of special attention is the record of the Southern 
statesmen of the old regime. I make no comparison between them and the 
public men of other sections. It is enough to say that almost without 
exception, so far as I know, they were men of unquestioned integrity and 
of sincere patriotism. By force of intellect and of character they long 
exerted a controlling influence in aff'airs and almost without exception de- 
served and received public respect and confidence. They were always 
positively, sometimes unduly insistent upon their rights and those of their 
constituency; but they were strong, fearless, capable, honorable men, 
strenuously and genuinely patriotic; and their long ascendancy in aff^airs 
of state was marked by efficiency, honesty, economy and fidelity to duty. 
The South has a right to be proud of these statesmen of the old time, 
and so has the legal profession, for the great majority of them were law- 
yers. 

The tone of the profession must have been high when it produced the 
long line of great and good men, and strong lawyers that began with Pey- 
ton Randolph, Madison, Monroe, Marshall, Wirt and Pinckney, and con- 
tains the names of Clay, Calhoun, Crawford, King, Berrien, Hayne, Jack- 
son, Overton, Hugh L. White, Polk, Grundy, Cobb, Stephens, John Bell, 
Toombs, Rhett, Yancey, Davis, Wise, Breckenridge, Benjamin and Catron, 
to say nothing of such lawyers of the border Southern States, as Luther 
Martin, Pinkney, Benton, Reverdy Johnson and Taney. 

Long ago a representative of one of the old and aristocratic families of 
the South, one of the genuine "fire eaters," consulted me with regard to the 
choice of a profession for his son. I said to him that in my opinion n\y 
own profession of the law did not offer so many advantages as formerly. 
He replied that the law was, and always would be "the ruling pro- 
fession of the world," and repelled with warmth my suggestion of the op- 



THE BAR OF THE SOUTH 309 

portunities for success in commercial life. His scorn of the "shop keeper" 
was outspoken and emphatic. His estimation of the law was characteristic 
of his generation, and I have tried to show how much there was to sup- 
port it. I am very sure that, on account of the conditions prevailing from 
1789 to 1 86 1, lawyers commanded more respect and wielded more influ- 
ence in the Southern States than ever before, or afterwards, in any part of 
the world. The intellect of the entire section went almost exclusively into 
the profession, and the result was a long line of lawyers, judges and states- 
men, whose names reflect honor upon our country. 

They were learned lawyers, eloquent advocates, just and wise judges, 
capable and incorruptible statesmen. No single man so profoundly af- 
fected the politics of the country as Thomas Jefferson; none has exerted so 
powerful an influence on its jurisprudence as Marshall; Webster's argu- 
ments were not so effectual in determining the real nature and effect of the 
Constitution as Jackson's uncompromising attitude toward nullification; 
no statesman has had such a personal following as Clay, unless it was 
Jackson; and until 1861, Hamilton had not attracted or convinced so many 
minds as Jefferson or Calhoun. 

When we consider the facts here briefly outlined, it is no wonder that to 
the people of the Old South the law appeared as "the ruling profession of 
the world." 

As to the influence of the bar upon the culture of the South there can be 
but one opinion. The logical inference is supported, abundantly, by the 
facts. The lawyers being, usually, men of education, were examples to 
others, and were also the active supporters of every movement for the 
advancement of learning. Mr. Jefferson founded and fixed the policy of 
the most noted Southern university. As a rule, the early Southern col- 
leges were corporations created by the legislatures and controlled by self- 
perpetuating boards of trustees, and an examination of the records of 
these institutions will show not only the numerical preponderance of the 
lawyers, but also their controlling influence in these corporations. It 
would be interesting, if it were possible, to ascertain how many prominent 
Southern lawyers were school teachers. Sometimes they became presi- 
dents of colleges and universities. Frequently they were editors. Judge 
Nicholson, who was twice senator from Tennessee; Yancey, of Alabama; 
Rhett, of South Carolina, were engaged, actively, at times, in newspaper 
work. Every calling that required intellectual training, every movement 
for the advancement of education and the improvement of morals was 



310 THE BAR OF THE SOUTH 

supported actively by the lawyers. In all respects their influence upon 
culture in the South was wholly good and strikingly eflTective. 

In their general social relations their conduct and their influence were 
excellent. The prominence of their position and the almost universal 
desire and expectation of public service made them exceptionally respon- 
sive to the ethical requirements of the communities in which they lived. 
But beyond this negative virtue, which might be attributed to an intelli- 
gent self-interest, there was a genuine and positive desire and purpose to 
serve their fellowmen and their country. No body or class of men ever 
had higher ideals or exhibited greater excellence in private or public life 
than the old-time Southern lawyers, with whom, mainly, I am now con- 
cerned. They were not free from the infirmities and faults of their times 
and of their environment, but impartially judged they are entitled to all 
the commendation I have given them, and their honorable example is an 
inspiration to their successors. At the bar the Southern lawyer was zeal- 
ous but honest; on the bench, fearless, impartial and incorruptible; in 
politics, his record, known to all his countrymen, is clear and altogether 
admirable; in private life, he was guided by the strictest standards of 
conduct, and by a constant regard of the courtesies of life and the rights of 
his fellowmen. It is not my purpose to idealize him. That he had his 
share of the weaknesses common to men is admitted, of course, but my 
present business is to depict him as he appeared in the large to his fellow 
citizens, and thereby show what his influence must have been on Southern 
life and culture. 

This account would be incomplete without reference to the connection 
of the lawyers with the religious life of the South, and here again I may be 
suspected of indiscriminate praise and of a desire to arrogate to my pro- 
fession all the virtues. The assertions which I am about to make do not 
admit of positive proof. Nevertheless, they are well founded. 

The profession did not escape in early times the Eighteenth century 
French influence, but it was not seriously infected, and it is affirmed confi- 
dently that in proportion to numbers, the lawyers of the South have been 
very much more largely represented in the churches than any other class 
of men. To an extent wholly exceptional, the lay activities and leadership 
in churches of all denominations have been in the hands of lawyers. It 
has been so in the past, and it is so now. The assertion is made without 
qualification, and an examination of the facts, past and present, would 
confirm it. 




JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE.* 

A CHAPTER OF POLITICAL HISTORY. 

TENNESSEE lawyer wittily says that Tennessee "broke into 
the Union.'' The "Territory of the United States South of 
the River Ohio" was established by an act of Congress passed 
May 26, 1790. By this act the newly created territory, which 
geographically was almost identical with the present State of Tennessee, 
was to be governed in all respects as the Northwest Territory, except 
that slavery was to be permitted. This last had been provided for in 
the act of cession, by which North Carolina had conveyed the greater 
part of the territory to the United States. 

The new territory was entitled to become a State whenever the popu- 
lation should amount to 60,000. The census properly should have been 
ordered by Congress and taken under Federal supervision, but the legis- 
lature of the territory, in ignorance or in disregard of this fact, passed 
an act July 11, 1795,, for the enumeration of the people. The popu- 
lation was found to exceed seventy-seven thousand. Thereupon a con- 
vention was called, and met at Knoxville, January 11, 1796. By the 
sixth of February it had completed its labors, having reproduced, with 
certain democratic changes, the Constitution of North Carolina of 1776. 
Mr. Jefferson said of this Tennessee Constitution, "that it was the least 
imperfect and the most republican" of the State Constitutions. 

The new applicant for statehood did not waste time, but in March, 
1796, assembled its first legislature, and prematurely elected two sen- 
ators. On the 8th of April the Constitution was presented to Congress. 
After some debate the House of Representatives passed a bill admitting 
Tennessee into the Union, but in the Senate the most serious opposition 
was encountered. The active championship of Aaron Burr was one 
of the principal means of securing the passage of the bill. The Fed- 
eralists opposed it as a measure in aid of Mr. Jefferson's ambition to 
become President. The bill was approved by the President on the first 
day of June, 1796. 

It thus appears that the Federalist leaders regarded Tennessee as 
certain to become a Republican State. In this they were right, and 
their course in opposing her admission to the Union had the efi^'ect of 

^Published in American Historical Review, July, 1899. ( 311 ) 



312 JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE 

confirming her Republicanism. The people were indignant on account 
of the opposition, and for many years no public man in Tennessee dared 
to admit that he entertained Federalist principles. It was not until 1823 
that there was a sign of revolt from the Democratic-Republican party 
in the State, and even then the demonstration was not serious, and for 
twelve years later there was no real party division in Tennessee. The 
Whig party had its birth in Tennessee in the year 1835, although four 
years elapsed before the name was openly adopted. 

In 1823 John Williams, who was United States Senator from Ten- 
nessee, sought re-election. He had been a colonel in the regular army, 
and had led his regiment with conspicuous valor in the battle of the 
Horse-shoe. As a Senator, his services had been acceptable and every- 
thing indicated his re-election. But Andrew Jackson was a candidate 
for the presidency and his supporters demanded pledges from Williams, 
who declined to give them and avowed his preference for a rival candi- 
date. The Jackson men, failing to find any other candidate who could 
defeat him, brought forward their distinguished leader, and elected 
him, but not without vigorous opposition. Among the members of the 
legislature who voted for Williams against Jackson was David Crockett. 
In 1827 ^^^ again in 1833, Crockett was elected to Congress. During 
both terms he was outspoken in opposition to Jackson, and in the last 
one declared himself a Whig, being probably the first man of note in 
the State to assume the name openly. From the year 18 15 till his death, 
Andrew Jackson was the foremost man in Tennessee. Failing of elec- 
tion to the presidency in 1824 he was elected in 1828, securing the sup- 
port of New York through the political skill and the energy of Martin 
Van Buren. Next to Jackson in distinction and popularity among the 
public men of Tennessee at this period was Hugh Lawson White, a 
man of great ability, of unsullied purity, and much force of character. 
He had been for years Jackson's intimate friend and his wisest and most 
capable adviser. About the beginning of Jackson's second term. White * 
began to be spoken of as a probable successor. Jackson had deter- 
mined that Van Buren should succeed him, and left nothing undone to 
secure that end. White was offered the most honorable offices in order 
to prevent his candidacy for the presidency, but declined them all. Fi- 
nally Jackson, according to his custom, yielded to his temper and declared 
that if White became a candidate he would be made odious to society. 
In December, 1834, a majority of the Tennessee delegation in Congress 



JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE 313 

joined in a letter to White asking him to declare himself a candidate. 
Justly incensed against Jackson, he instantly consented, and among 
his supporters at this time was John Bell, who was destined to be the 
leader of the Whig party in Tennessee throughout its existence. 

These preliminary statements are necessary to a clear understanding 
of Bell's career. He was a native of Tennessee, and was born near Nash- 
ville, February 15, 1797. His father, Samuel Bell, was one of the pioneers 
of Tennessee. His mother, whose maiden name was Margaret Edmiston, 
was a native of Virginia, descended from a worthy Scotch-Irish ances- 
try. Her father, Samuel Edmiston,* was with Shelby at the battle of 
King's Mountain, and the musket which he carried on that memorable 
day is preserved in the rooms of the Tennessee Historical Society at 
Nashville. 

John Bell was educated at the University of Nashville, graduating 
in 1 8 14. Three years later, when he had barely attained his majority, 
he was elected to the State Senate. Realizing promptly, however, that 
he had made a mistake in entering politics so early in life, he declined 
a re-election, and removing to Nashville, devoted the next ten years to 
the study and the practice of law, and to careful general reading. The 
bar of Nashville was a strong one, but Bell rose rapidly, and the most 
competent judges declare that he was exceptionally qualified for the 
profession. The cast of his mind was philosophic and judicial, but he 
preferred the large affairs of state to the incessant contests and the drudg- 
ery of the law. That he looked forward, from the first, to a career in 
public life, is not to be doubted. 

In 1827 he believed that the time had arrived when he might enter 
with 'safety upon this career. The Nashville district contained many 
strong men, but, with the exception of Andrew Jackson, none better 
known or more popular at that time than Felix Grundy. In Kentucky, 
where he had been reared, Grundy had been chief-justice of the highest 
court of that State. In the legislature of Kentucky he had shown him- 
self no unworthy rival of Henry Clay as an orator and as a debater. In 
Tennessee, whither he moved in 1807, he had been elected to Congress 
with practical unanimity in 181 1, and re-elected in 1813, but had resigned. 
While in Congress he had exerted an unsurpassed influence. He had 
been one of the most vigorous advocates of the War of 18 12, and the 
Federalists were fond of attributing that war to the firm of "Madison, 
Grundy and the Devil." 



314 JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE 

In 1827 Mr. Grundy again sought to represent the Nashville dis- 
trict in Congress. Andrew Jackson was his outspoken and active sup- 
porter, and at that time the influence of Jackson in Tennessee was be- 
lieved to be irresistible. It caused the most profound astonishment, 
therefore, when Grundy, the man next to Jackson in popular fame and 
admiration, in the district, was defeated by John Bell, then a compar- 
atively unknown man; and the new Congressman continued for four- 
teen years to represent the Nashville district. 

At first there was no open breach between him and Jackson, but 
Bell never forgot the contest of 1827, and Jackson's course at that time 
was destined to influence profoundly the later political history of the 
State and of the Union. It was the beginning of the estrangement of 
the two men who played the most important parts in public life in Ten- 
nessee, during the three decades preceding the Civil War. Despite 
the fact that Mr. Bell's temperament and habits of mind were in a meas- 
ure unsuited to the noisy and sometimes tempestuous proceedings of 
the House of Representatives, he speedily rose to a position of leader- 
ship. Among the Tennesseans he was easily the most accomplished 
and effective debater. He was not a frequent speaker, but when he 
arose was heard always with respect and attention. He had many of 
the physical gifts and graces of the orator, together with an exceptional 
command of language, and was a clear, logical and persuasive reasoner. 

Twice he seemed on the brink of a broader career; but was both 
times disappointed. In 1834 he was elected Speaker of the House of 
Representatives, but in 1835 ^^^ defeated for that office by James K. 
Polk of his own State. In 1841 he entered President Harrison's cabinet 
as Secretary of War, but resigned after the death of the President and 
the political defection of his successor. He might at this time, or at 
least in 1843, have bedn elected to the Senate, but preferred for the time 
to remain in private life. 

Meanwhile events of great importance to him and to the country 
led, or rather drove him, to a radical change of position. In every Con- 
gressional election, after 1827, the friends of Jackson had manifested 
a bitter opposition to Bell, but all their efforts to defeat him had been 
futile. The estrangement between Jackson and Bell begun in 1827, 
was more and more confirmed every year by this persistent antagoniz- 
ing of Bell by the President's friends. 

As early as 1831, Jackson's determination to make Van Buren his 



JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE 315 

successor was becoming widely known, though Tennessee and other 
States preferred White, and Crockett, again in Congress, was bold in 
opposing Jackson. The seeds sown in the fight against Williams in 
1823 were bearing fruit; and in 1835 the time was ripe for political revo- 
lution in Tennessee. White's candidacy for the presidency was a de- 
claration of independence and also a declaration of war. Tennessee 
was strongly for White and profoundly distrustful of Van Buren. Bell 
became the leader of the White forces in that State, not so much because 
he loved White, although he held him in great esteem, as because he 
knew that his own political life and the political future of the State were 
involved in the struggle. 

Up to this time Bell had never placed himself distinctly in opposition 
to Jackson, or to his party. It is true that he had disapproved the re- 
m.oval of the bank deposits, but he had supported Jackson in the nulli- 
fication troubles, and had been in accord with the administration upon 
the subject of the tariff. Even in 1835 he was not ready to leave the 
Democratic-Republican party, or to admit that the differences between 
the President and himself were more than personal. Upon the contrary 
he declared that the friends of White would adhere to Jackson, but from 
a desire to be consistent, and out of respect for their own characters and 
in support of their own principles. But events were irresistible; no 
sooner had White become a candidate than a furious factional war began. 
The Globe, the Jackson organ at Washington, declared that White was 
being used by Bell to break down the administration. The President 
declared that Bell must not he returned to Congress; but no one could 
be found to run against him, and he was re-elected. The press of the 
State favored White, and therefore one Jeremiah George Harris, a native 
of New England, a trained writer, with a gift of satire and vituperation, 
devoted to Jackson and Van Buren and versed in political methods, 
was brought to Tennessee and placed in charge of a newspaper to ridi- 
cule and abuse Bell and White. In 1835 White was returned to the 
Senate. In the State election of that year the White candidate for Gov- 
ernor was elected, and everything indicated that the State would go for 
White in the Federal election. 

Jackson, as usual, fought with all his strength, willingly enduring 
the hardships of the long journey from Washington to Tennessee in 
order to engage in personal advocacy of his candidate, maintaining, 
however, that the issue was solely between White and himself. But 



3l6 JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE 

his efforts were of no avail. White carried the State and even secured 
a majority in the Hermitage precinct. Jackson and his supporters in 
this campaign denounced Bell and White and their friends as Whigs, as 
**new Whigs," and by this last opprobrious name they were long known. 
The reluctance with which men admit a change of political position 
was never more strikingly shown than in Tennessee at this period. The 
proscriptions of the Jacksonians had alienated many prominent men 
and caused much discontent among the people; in Tennessee, as else- 
where, there were differences of opinion upon public questions, but the 
sentiment existing before Tennessee became a State and confirmed by 
the opposition to her admission, had up to this time been too strong to 
be resisted, and the leaders of the dominant party had been men of extra- 
ordinary ability and force. 

It was not until 1839 that the opponents of Jackson reached the point 
where they were willing to call themselves Whigs. White refused to 
the last to adopt the name, but called himself an independent. New- 
ton Cannon, a candidate for Governor in 1839, was the first avowed 
Whig candidate for that office in Tennessee. But the strength of the 
Whigs, or of the opponents of Jackson, in the State is shown by the fact 
that in 1840 Harrison carried Tennessee by a majority of 12,000 votes 
in a total of a little over 100,000. In 1841 and again in 1843, James 
C. Jones, the Whig candidate for Governor, defeated so conspicuous 
and important a Democrat as James K. Polk. 

In 1844 Mr. Polk, although elected President, was unable to carry 
his own State, and in 1848 and in 1852, the Whig candidates received 
the electoral vote of Tennessee. In every presidential election from 1796 
to 1832, inclusive, Tennessee gave her vote to the Democratic-Repub- 
lican candidate. In 1824 John Quincy Adams received only 216 votes 
in the State, and in 1828 only 2,240. In 1832 Mr. Clay's vote was 1,436 
and Jackson's 28,740. These figures, compared with the vote in 1836, 
show, first, the strength of the Democratic party, and the utter want 
of opposition to it, and, second, that there was a large stay-at-home vote 
in the State which must have been in some measure disaffected. For 
in 1836 Van Buren received 26,120 votes, only 2,000 less than had been 
cast for Jackson four years before, while the aggregate opposition vote 
was almost 36,000. Making the largest allowance for the increase of 
population in the interval between the two elections, it is still certain 
that almost half the voters had been neglecting to vote, and that many 



JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE 317 

of them were not Democrats, or at least not Jacksonians in sentiment. 
Crockett, Williams, White and Bell led the way to overthrow of the Demo- 
crats. Crockett was unable to return to Congress after 1835, Williams 
died in 1837, and White in 1840, and Bell became, as he was entitled to 
be, the leader of the Whig party in Tennessee, and held that position 
without dispute until the dissolution of the party. Thus the first mani- 
festation of serious opposition to Jackson in Tennessee was in 1835; the 
first contest in which the party name Whig was openly adopted was in 
1839, and the last distinctively Whig victory in 1852. The election of 
i860 will be considered later. 

Tennessee, the second in age among the Southwestern States, was 
from 1825 to i860 the first in political importance and influence, by 
reason of her population and wealth, by reason of the ability of her pub- 
lic men, and not a little because Andrew Jackson was a citizen of the 
State. It was in the early part of this period that the West asserted itself, 
and that the new Democratic influences which wrested the government 
permanently from the Federalists made themselves felt. Speaking of 
this time, Woodrow Wilson says: "The inauguration of Jackson brought 
a new class of men into leadership, and marks the beginning, for good 
or for ill, of a distinctively American order of politics, begotten of the 
crude forces of a new nationality. A change of political weather, long 
preparing, had set in. The new generation which asserted itself in 
Jackson was not in the least regardful of conservative traditions." In 
Kentucky the influence of Mr. Clay, always opposed to Jackson, and 
always conservative, gave a diff^erent direction to opinion and conduct. 

From 1 8 15 to 1835 the political vocabulary of Tennessee was com- 
prised in the one word Jackson. Admiration and fear alike contributed 
to Jackson's influence, and never was a public man more ardently or 
ably supported. Among his lieutenants were John Overton, John Cat- 
ron, John H. Eaton, Aaron V. Brown, Cave Johnson, Felix Grundy, 
Hugh L. White and James K. Polk, all men of large ability and in the 
front rank of Southern leaders. The party thus led was long invincible, 
and its defeat came at last from over-confidence, and the illiberal and 
proscriptive policy of its imperative chief. But its overthrow was not 
easily accomplished. The first serious resistance was made within three 
years of the time when it had carried the State with practical unanimity. 
Jackson, the hardest of fighters, was still its leader, and was animated 
not only by his native determination and by political prejudices and 



3l8 JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE 

pride, but also by a bitter personal dislike of the leaders of the opposition. 
After the defeats of 1835 and 1836, the contest lost nothing of its bitter- 
ness. In 1839 the Democrats elected Polk Governor and regained con- 
trol of the legislature. Hugh L. White and Ephraim H. Foster were the 
Senators at the time, and the Jackson leaders determined, if possible, 
to force them to resign. The opportunity came speedily. Both Sen- 
ators were known to be opposed to the sub-treasury, and both were known 
to believe that the legislature had the right to instruct Senators in Fed- 
eral affairs. Resolutions were therefore adopted at Nashville, Novem- 
ber 8, 1839, instructing White and Foster to vote among other things 
for the sub-treasury bill. The scheme succeeded. In 1841 the Whigs 
had a majority, on joint ballot, in the legislature, but the Senate being 
Democratic by one majority, the Democrats in that body, led by Andrew 
Johnson, prevented a quorum, with the result that from 1841 to 1843 
Tennessee had no Senators in Congress. In 1843 the Whigs elected 
both Senators; in 1845 the Democrats succeeded in displacing one of 
these. In 1847 Mr. Bell was elected and at the close of the term was 
re-elected, thus serving continuously for twelve years. 

No other man in Tennessee, hardly any man in the South, was so 
well qualified by nature and by training for the duties of Senator, In- 
tellectually he was inferior probably to Webster and Calhoun, but to 
no other men who were in public life in 1847. His mind was large and 
thoroughly balanced, his temperament was equable and philosophic; 
he had been a diligent student of the philosophy and history of govern- 
ment, of the law, and of general literature; he was a speaker of rare pow- 
ers, a graceful and effective rhetorician, and a clear and discriminating 
thinker. Above all, he was an honest man, of blameless life, and a sin- 
cere patriot. 

His time of service in the Senate was one of strife and of incessant 
commotion and change in the political world. Patriotic expedients 
had long postponed issue in Congress upon the slavery question, but 
now conditions imperatively demanded its consideration. Mr. Clay, 
still devoted to compromise, in 1850 secured the submission of the pend- 
ing questions of sectional difference to a committee of thirteen selected 
from both parties, and Bell served with him on this committee. 

A bill for the organization of Nebraska was introduced in the session 
of 1 852-1 853, but was not disposed of until the following year; to the 
measure, Bell was strongly opposed, mainly because of the injustice to 



JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE 3I9 

the Indians that would result from its adoption. In 1854 came the prop- 
osition to repeal the Missouri Compromise. The South, upon firm 
constitutional grounds, but with deplorably mistaken policy, favored 
the repeal, and Mr. Bell's vote against it provoked anger and widespread 
criticism in Tennessee. The repeal of the Compromise proved to be 
in the highest degree prejudicial to the South. When the Lecompton 
Constitution for Kansas cam.e before Congress, Bell did not hesitate, in 
advance of its consideration, to declare himself opposed to it. There- 
upon the legislature of Tennessee instructed him to vote for it. He 
declined, however, to be instructed, and voted against the so-called Con- 
stitution, thereby again incurring the severest censure. But he was 
right and had the courage to stand to his convictions. In 1859 he retired 
from the Senate. For seven years he had been practically a man with- 
out a party. In 1851, the Whigs had been still strong enough to carry 
Tennessee for Scott, but it was a barren victory. The Whigs carried 
only four States, and the party received its death-blow. Bell was re- 
turned to the Senate, and thenceforth he and Crittenden of Kentucky 
represented the Southern Whigs in that body. They were not only the 
last of the Whig leaders, but the last of the great men of their generation 
in the Senate. 

Bell returned to Tennessee at a time of great uncertainty and anxiety. 
The political sky was angry and full of threatenings, and forebodings 
of evil oppressed every patriot heart. Bell loved the Union with a sur- 
passing love, and his every sentiment and every conviction opposed the 
doctrine and the policy of secession. It is too soon, now, to say that 
the conduct of many Northern leaders, especially of the more strenuous 
advocates of abolition, was extreme, and their demands opposed to the 
Constitution. But Bell and other Union men of the South believed 
this to be true. These genuine patriots and Unionists were not more 
opposed to Southern "fire-eaters," of the Yancey type, than to such 
Northern "fire-eaters" as Garrison and Phillips. They regarded both 
factions of extremists as alike responsible for the danger that threatened 
the Union; and it is at least possible that the impartial history which is 
yet to be written will not charge the Southern leaders with all the un- 
reasonableness and want of patriotism that provoked the Civil War. 
Bell was prepared to make any personal or political sacrifice to preserve 
the Union. Another presidential election was at hand. The long- 
triumphant Democracy was now discordant. The Charleston Con- 



320 JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE 

vention marked a fatal disruption of the party, and the existence of twa 
irreconcilable factions forbade all hope of success. The Republican 
party, though young and not yet firmly established, was hopeful and 
aggressive. There were many worthy men, especially in the South,, 
who would not follow either faction of the Democracy, and who, at the 
samxc time, strongly opposed the Republican policy. A convention 
of these, representing twenty-two States, met in Baltimore, May 9, i860, 
and nominated Bell for President and Edward Everett for Vice-Presi- 
dent, as the candidates of the "Constitutional Union Party." Bell's 
principal competitor for the nomination was Sam Houston, of Texas, 
With much frankness and justice the convention declared that party 
platforms were insincere, and meant to deceive, and therefore it promul- 
gated none, but contented itself with the adoption of a simple resolution, 
declaring in favor of the Union, the Constitution and the enforcement 
of the laws. In the election. Bell and Everett carried the States of Ten- 
nessee, Kentucky and Virginia, and received three of the votes of New 
Jersey. 

The six months succeeding the election were full of distress for Bell 
and his friends in Tennessee. Isham G. Harris, the Governor, a man 
of great ability and of indomitable will, was now an avowed secession- 
ist. Bell was no less positive in opposition, and at first it seemed that 
Tennessee would refuse to secede. The vote for Bell and Everett had 
been 69,274, for Douglas 11,350, for Breckenridge 64,709. Thus the 
Whigs and the Union Democrats outnumbered the Breckenridge Dem- 
ocrats by fifteen thousand. 

On January 7, 1861, the legislature met in special session, and shortly 
afterward passed a resolution submitting to the people the question of 
ordering a convention to determine whether or not the State would with- 
draw from the Union, and also providing for the election of delegates 
to the convention. The election was held February 8, 1861, and the 
vote was for the convention, 57,798, against it, 69,675. A better test 
of public sentiment, however, was the vote for delegates, cast at the same 
time. The aggregate vote for Union delegates was 88,803, ^"^ ^^^ ^^^" 
union delegates 24,749. 

This election was* accepted as conclusive evidence that Tennessee 
would not secede, and but for the events of the ensuing spring, she proba- 
bly would not have seceded. There was no one in the State who was 
a disunionist for the sake of disunion, not even Governor Harris; but 



JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE 321 

while East Tennessee had but few slaves, Middle and West Tennessee 
were large slave-holding sections, having interests and sentiments in com- 
mon with the States that had already seceded. 

The attack on Fort Sumter provoked Mr. Lincoln's proclamation 
of April 15, 1861, calling for volunteers to suppress insurrection, and 
Governor Harris, when called upon for the State's quota, sent an indig- 
nant refusal. 

This was the critical time for Bell and his followers, and we shall 
fail to do justice to the Whig leader without knowledge of his pure char- 
acter and lofty patriotism, without a genuine sympathy for him person- 
ally and a clear perception of conditions in the South at that time. He 
believed, after the publication of the President's proclamation, that the 
destruction of the Union was inevitable. He believed, also, that the 
policy of the administration was unconstitutional and revolutionary. 
Alexander H. Stephens declares that Mr. Lincoln's proclamations alone 
caused the Southern Whigs to change position. He says that the Whig 
leaders of the South regarded these proclamations as the English peo- 
ple regarded the edicts of Charles L for ship-money. 

Three days after the appearance of the proclamation calling for vol- 
unteers a number of the most prominent Whigs in Tennessee, led by 
Mr. Bell, issued an address in which they said, among other things: 
"Tennessee is called upon by the President to furnish two regiments, 
and the State has, through her executive, refused to comply with the call. 
This refusal of our State we fully approve." A later paragraph con- 
tains the following: "Should a purpose be developed by the govern- 
ment of over-running and subjugating our brethren of the seceded States, 
we say unequivocally that it will be the duty of the State to resist at all 
hazards, and at any cost, and by force of arms, any such purpose or at- 
tempt." The address further calls upon the State to arm and to main- 
tain the position of armed neutrality which many Southern Whigs vainly 
hoped would enable the conservatives to mediate between the North 
and the South. 

This address having been issued, events speedily dictated the result. 

The South was threatened with invasion. On the 25th of April the 

legislature again met in special session. The governor in his message 

boldly advocated secession and an application for admission into the 

Southern Confederacy. The ordinance of secession was passed May 6, 

1 86 1, affirming not the constitutional right, but the revolutionary right 
21 



322 JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE 

of withdrawal from the Union in the following language: "We, the 
people of the State of Tennessee, waiving any expression of opinion as 
to the abstract doctrine of secession, but asserting the right as a free 
and independent people to alter, reform, or abolish our form of govern- 
ment in such manner as we think proper, do ordain," etc. 

On May 7, the State entered into a military league with the Con- 
federacy, and the legislature appropriated $5,000,000 to equip a pro- 
visional army of 55,000 men. When the vote was taken, June 8, it stood 
for secession 104,903, against secession 47,238; for representation in 
the Confederate Congress 101,701, against representation 47,364. On 
the 24th of June the governor issued his proclamation formally dissolv- 
ing the connection of Tennessee with the United States, and on the 2d 
of July, President Jefferson Davis declared Tennessee a member of the 
Southern Confederacy. Mr. Bell went with the State. 

In the brief political campaign preceding the June election, his in- 
fluence was actively exerted in favor of the measure which up to that 
time he had strenuously opposed. He did not advocate nor approve 
secession as a political doctrine, but in the spirit of the State ordinance, 
asserted that conditions required the exercise of the right of revolution. 
Northern writers have condemned him severely for his course at this 
time. Mr. Blaine says: "If Mr. Bell had taken firm ground for the Union, 
the secession movement would have been to a very great extent paralyzed 
in the South.'* Comparing Bell with Everett he says: "If Mr. Bell 
had stood beside him with equal courage and equal determination, Ten- 
nessee would never have seceded and the Rebellion would have been 
confined to the seven original States. A large share of the responsi- 
bility for the dangerous development of the Rebellion must, therefore, 
be attributed to John Bell and his half-million Southern supporters of 
the old Whig party. At the critical moment they signally failed." 

These censures are in a large measure unjust, and they demonstrate 
the want of an accurate knowledge of Mr. Bell's character and opinions, 
and of political conditions in the South before the war. Bell was a man 
of extraordinary purity of character and was sincere in every act and 
utterance of his public life. He rejected the doctrine that the Constitu- 
tion authorized secession for any cause. He did not believe that any 
State could, of its own motion, lawfully separate from the Union; but upon 
the other hand he held the Southern rather than the Northern view of 
the Hmitations of the Federal government over the States, and was sincere 



JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE 323 

in the belief that the conduct of the government in April, 1861, was so 
gross a violation of the Constitution as to justify Tennessee in declaring 
her independence. It is not intended here to offer any argument in 
support of these opinions, but only to declare, that whether they were 
right or wrong, Mr. Bell held them in good faith. Therefore, his con- 
duct at this time was not a "signal failure," but an act of conscience, 
not a manifestation of weakness of character, but of devotion to convic- 
tion and to duty, made fearlessly, but with infinite reluctance and 
distress. 

That anything that he could have done would have prevented the 
secession of Tennessee is not true. The doctrine of States' Rights and 
State loyalty had pervaded the entire South, and many thousands of 
genuine patriots and sincere lovers of the Union with aching hearts fol- 
lowed their States out of the Union, under the compulsion of an honest 
sense of duty. But an overwhelming majority of the people of the slave- 
holding States demanded secession, and carried their point. The senti- 
ment was irresistible. It has been asserted that Governor Harris forced 
Tennessee out of the Union, while Bell failed in courage and duty at 
the critical moment. Against the latter accusation it has already been 
shown that Bell really displayed courage of the highest order. But it 
is further true that superficial observers have attributed to Bell and to 
Harris a degree of influence vastly in excess of what either possessed. 
The great currents of popular sentiment that were sweeping over the 
South at that time irresistibly carried all men, great and small, one way 
or the other. Harris did not cause the secession of Tennessee, and could 
not have prevented it. If Bell had been a man ten times greater and 
ten times more influential, he could not have held Tennessee in the Union, 
after Mr. Lincoln's call for volunteers. That was a task beyond human 
power. Leaders no longer led. The popular will was supreme. If 
Bell had not yielded, as he did, to the honest belief that his duty lay with 
the people of Tennessee, he would have been brushed aside or crushed 
by this tremendous sentiment. And so if Harris, with all the vigor of 
his intense and imperious nature, had attempted to stem the tide, he 
also would have been lost. Both were men of extraordinary force and 
influence, but the events of the time obscured all persons and all per- 
sonal influence. 

In the war Mr. Bell had no part, and never after i860 did he attract 
or seek public attention. He had not been sufiiciently in sympathy 



324 JOHN BELL OF TENNESSEE 

with secession to win the favor of the South, and at the North much 
odium was unjustly attached to his name. This country has produced 
no more sincerely or unselfishly patriotic man, none whose life was more 
thoroughly squared with conviction. To no American did the war bring 
deeper grief, and never did opprobrium more unjustly fall upon an honor- 
able and a good man. He died September i8, 1869. 

That he was not fitted for times of revolution must be admitted. He 
was not a man of action, but of thought; a scholar, a philosopher, a scrup- 
ulous and cautious, but great statesman. He had almost none of the 
qualities that made his great antagonist Andrew Jackson a successful 
popular leader. The scholarly and philosophic cast of his mind, the 
habit of considering all sides of every question, gave to his conduct some- 
times the appearance of indecision. He did not decide quickly, but 
slowly and carefully; but a conclusion once reached was fearlessly main- 
tained. In later life he perhaps lacked aggressiveness, though this was 
not true of him in his early days, and especially in his brilliant canvass 
against Grundy in 1827. He was a leader in the two political struggles 
which were the most momentous in the history of Tennessee. In the 
fierce battle against Jackson, he was successful and won the leadership 
of a great party. In the contest of 1861 he was compelled by a sense 
of duty to yield, but he retired in honor; and dispassionate history will 
rank him among the ablest, the purest and the best men our country 
has produced. 



THE CHRONICLE OF 1907.* 

PROLOGUE, CLASSICAL. 

Every poet of old had a well-strung shell 

And therefore his numbers were easy to tell; 

And each of them owned a resonant reed, 

And mounted, at will, on a winged steed; 

There were plentiful springs for refreshing the bard. 

Whenever he found that the going was hard; 

There were numberless nymphs, tradition tells, 

All warily watching these wonderful wells; 

There were mountains prepared for poets to climb 

When especially bent upon being sublime; 

Then, shepherds reclining beneath the beeches, 

Gave vent to their loves in lyrical speeches; 

As Tityrus trolling to his Amaryllis, 

Or Corydon piping the praises of Phyllis. 

These pastoral lasses had classical looks 

And were strolling all day by classical brooks. 

Commanding large flocks with classical crooks, 

And making nice verses for classical books. 

The lords of Olympus, their records disclose, 

Would scarcely consent to use any prose; 

But granting a blessing or giving a curse. 

They always expressed it in excellent verse. 

When Jupiter quarreled with jealous Juno, 

He thundered in faultless Alcaics, you know; 

And the Queen of Olympus could always retort 

In phrases emphatic, of a similar sort. 

The verses of Venus were very Adonic, 

While Apollo adopted the major Ionic. 

Minerva was wise in iambic trimeter. 

And Mercury lied in just any meter. 

Thus up on Olympus, and down on the earth 

Everybody made verses for all he was worth. 

The cause of it all, perhaps was the Muses, 

Though one may believe whatever he chooses. 

These obliging young goddesses never denied, 

But imparted afflatus to all who applied. 

They made a large family, these sisters divine, 

Amounting in all to the number of nine; 



*The last of a series of sketches, numbering about a dozen, of the Irving Club and its members, 
full of personal reference and humorous flavor, read at club meetings by the President at will. 

(335) 



326 THE CHRONICLE OF I907 

All kin in some wise to incontinent Jove, 
The King of the gods who was always in love. 
These Muses all lived on a marvelous mount 
Frequented by poets in search of a fount. 
Thus with Jove and his family all in their prime, 
And all of them greatly addicted to rhyme, 
With the shepherds all puffing melodious reeds, 
And the fauns all footing on flowery meads. 
And everybody singing a madrigal, 
And nobody thinking of working at all, 
With all of the Muses at home at Parnassus, 
The ancients of Greece could greatly surpass us 
In verse and in prose. 
As every one knows. 
In arts that are plastic. 
And wit that is drastic. 
In tragedies fearful as well as fantastic. 
To say nothing concerning their morals elastic. 
But it happened in time great changes occurred. 
And the gods and the Greeks alike were disturbed. 
For very good reasons Olympian Jove 
And most of his family decided to move; 
But for causes occult, that can't be defined. 
They heartlessly left all the Muses behind. 
With baggage and bag the rest disappeared 
And just where they went we never have heard. 
We do not complain for, leaving out Plutus, 
They are gods of a sort that never would suit us. 
When the Olympians left they dried up the springs 
And took all the horses that had any wings. 
And now all the nymphs and dryads have flown 
And the Muses are left on their mountain alone. 
The Greeks have discarded idyllic pursuits. 
And taken to blacking barbarian boots. 
Thus basely abandoned by father and mothers, 
(For the mother of each was no kin to the others) 
The fate of the Muses was truly pathetic. 
And, finding the Hellenes no longer aesthetic. 
And the sons of Ajax 
All turning shoe blacks 
Or resorting to other unclassical acts, 
The whole of the nine began to repine. 
And all of the arts went into decline. 
But Euterpe, the joyous, most gracious of all. 
Still pipes on occasion to her worshipers' call. 



THE CHRONICLE OF I907 327 



NARRATIVE, UNCLASSICAL. 



Dr. Richmond sat in the reader's chair, 

And Maynard and Milton and Mellen were there, 

And several preachers 

And several teachers 
With astonishment stamped on their several features. 
'Twas a deep dissertation, on the Volcano 
That the Doctor delivered as you doubtless know, 
And he read in a way that could not but tend 
To stand each several hair on its end. 
He told of the fire forever aglow 
In the dismal deeps of the earth below. 
Devouring the rocks and raging amain. 
Like a baited beast in the sorest pain. 
Till some Aetna at last affords it a vent, 
And it damages things to a dreadful extent. 
He painted the picture in colors so lurid 
That everyone present was visibly flurried, 
The Judge was seen to shiver and shake 
And remained for the rest of the evening — awake. 



On the heels of this epic of the Volcano 
Trod the terrible tale of the tornado; 
Jourolmon, he told it, with never a smile, 
A visage without a suspicion of guile, 
Its raging and roaring, 
Its sinking and soaring. 
Its groaning and growling, 
Its hissing and howling, 
A tale of destruction extremely appalling; 
Also of the pranks that it frequently plays. 
Being wholly erratic in all of its ways. 
Of lovers caught strolling, and lifted up high 
And carried along very close to the sky. 
Then gently set down, as Jourolmon depones. 
The maid and her lover with no broken bones; 
How a maiden forlorn was left in the lurch 
Impaled on the steeple of a Methodist Church. 
Then Olmstead determined to give him a shock 
And told how a cyclone had wound up a clock. 



328 THE CHRONICLE OF I907 

Then Baker said blandly I'll stick to the facts, 
And place your credulity under no tax, 
I tell of the deeps 
Where the oyster sleeps. 
Where Leviathan blows 
And the octopus grows, 
And the tidal wave tremendously flows. 
This wave is the quickest thing under the sun. 
It has hardly begun, before it is done. 
A certain one started from Honolulu 
And reached Panama in a minute or two, 
And then it went back, which didn't take long, 
For two minutes later it reached Hongkong. 



Said Keffer, a farmer detests and despises 
A panic financial, and also a crisis. 
As a farmer I sow 
Things that frequently grow. 
And I plow with a plow. 
Or at least I know how, 
But my present disgust I freely avow; 
And I notify now the program committee 
I'll have my revenge, and I'll show them no pity. 
I excel all my neighbors by many degrees. 
In the science of breeding and doctoring trees. 
I exterminate bugs with infinite craft, 
And defy competition in the matter of graft. 
But it's very little short of being Satanic 
To force me to write concerning a panic. 



Then the Editor said: "Let Keffer alone. 
You'll know all about it, as soon as I'm done. 
For I shall condense 
The learning immense 
Which the file of the Sentinel fully presents. 
And that is the paper to patronize 
When you've anything fit to advertise." 
He pictured the panics that have gone before 
And showed us the way to prevent any more. 
If his sapient rule we securely seize, 
There can never be another financial squeeze. 



THE CHRONICLE OF I907 329 

Then Bruce, with his pen in profundity dipped, 
Produced an illegible manuscript. 

For Bruce is prolific 
Of hieroglyphic, 

Compounded of characters truly terrific. 
But he's read all the books, and most of them twice, 
And writes in a style that's uncommonly nice. 
He slightly condensed the limitless prose 
That deals with Pamela and all of her woes. 
The virtuous deeds of that virtuous maid, 
Were never more kindly, benignly portrayed. 
The Doctor is always so touchingly tender, 
In all that relates to the feminine gender, 
And resembles the late Sir Galahad, 
Who, always was good, and never was bad. 



Good rhyme as a rule is not over-abundant, 
But, writing of Rosses, it's really redundant. 

You indite the name Ross, 
Shall you rhyme it with boss 
Or oppose it with cross. 

Or mate it with moss, 

Or irreverent sauce. 

Or vernacular goss? 
Just what to select you are sadly at loss. 
A thane of the Rosses was friend of Banquo, 
When bloody Macbeth laid that gentleman low; 
And in subsequent ages, the whole way down. 
The clan of the Rosses has been of renown. 
But best of them all, most highly deserving. 
Is Ross of that ilk who belongs to the Irving; 
Who writes up the battle of New Orleans, 
With mutliple maps to show what he means, 
Or tells the adventures of tough Tom Jones, 
Which he rather enjoys, but never condones. 



In Hoskins, the sage, profound erudite. 

See learning with wisdom in concord unite; 
To judge from his looks 
He lives upon books 

Entirely beyond the seductions of cooks. 

His knowledge embraces the sum of affairs, 



330 THE CHRONICLE OF I907 

And he sits upon three professorial chairs. 

With affluent learning he daily descants 

On the nebulous science of higher finance; 

And the light of his learning resplendently shines 

Through the clouds that enshroud the trusts and combines. 

He teaches ten topics of largest extent 

And his genius still craves an adequate vent. 



Say, kindly Muse, why blessings come in showers 
And fortune smiles upon the house of Powers? 

He holds an election 

Without imperfection. 
Or his genius escapes our feeble detection. 
He recently had the good fortune to seize 
An office productive of very fat fees, 
But the ultimate honor one ever wins 
Is that which pertains to a parent of twins. 



Discussing a Doctor of Divinity 
One must have due regard for concinnity; 
For these gentlemen ghostly 
Are sensitive mostly 
And clerical censures are sure to be costly. 
Dr. Olmstead now lives in Tennessee; 
But residing abroad, in Venice he 
Acquired vast knowledge, as everyone knows. 
Concerning Venetians and other Dagoes; 
And he owns a lecture which fully describes 
The wonders of Venice, with lantern slides. 
But the Doctor is best, by at least one-half, 
When he's quoting or making an epitaph. 



The parsons of Irving are all of the best, 

And their praises I'm sounding with infinite zest. 

I dedicate humbly the lines that ensue 

To the parson whose hosen are said to be blue. 

This sterilized phrase 

I am sure displays 
A delicacy worthy of generous praise. 
Mr. Ogden's debut, as you will recall it. 



THE CHRONICLE OF I907 33I 



Was made in discussion of rare Toby Smollett, 

Of his Roderick Random, the reprobate, 

And prodigal Pickle, the peregrinate. 

He later astounded us altogether 

By luminous learning relating to leather. 



A gentleman large now looms on my vision, 
Denominate Maynard, to speak with precision, 

Of dignified mien 
As ever was seen, 

A gentleman courtly, and portly I ween. 
He has seen foreign lands, and thereon expands 
Whenever occasion permits or demands. 
He heard Baker tell of the tide-wave's rush. 
And then proceeded to give him a crush. 
He was down in the tropics, on the Spanish main. 
And he witnessed the work of a big hurricane. 
'Twas many times worse, as the story he gave, 
Than Baker's improbable Panama wave; 
For it took up a ship as it lay at rest. 
And dropped it down on a mountain's crest; 
And there on the mountain that ship will stay, 
If it last so long, till the Judgment Day. 



To trace Richard Gibson's itinerary 
Since first he began to be literary. 

Would surely astound us 
And fairly confound us, 

Disclosing such deeds as would daze and dumbfound us. 
The sum of his writing is truly tremendous. 
The mass of his thinking is simply stupendous. 
It is not improper that I should add. 
That he only writes on a pencil pad. 
And he writes so much and uses so many. 
He exhausts the supply and doesn't leave any. 
His favorite authors are the recondite, 
And he still reads Browning every night. 
He prefers this author because he's so nice, 
He never understands him the same way twice; 
And he still reprobates Boccaccio 
As "a blamed immoral old Dago." 



332 THE CHRONICLE OF I907 

All hail to thee, Mellen, man of many parts, 
Beloved of Apollo, opulent in arts; 
Ever constant, sage Klio, at thy sacred shrine, 
Nor ever inconstant, Polymnia, at thine. 
To bring dow^n my meaning within easier reach. 
He's highly historic, and happy of speech; 
For whatever has rust, he has infinite gust. 
And he savors the dust of antiquity's must. 
He's a farmer Hke Flaccus, 
A patriot like Gracchus, 
A parent possessing 
A generous blessing; 
But all that he is I despair of expressing. 
He's now on the tripod, didactic and solemn, 
Diurnally doing a double-width column. 



We think of the preacher as one of the mystics. 
And hardly expect him to give us statistics; 
But the Rector, perceiving our country's salvation, 
Endangered by want of increased immigration. 

Has shown us the fact 

By figures exact 
And large mathematics, that can't be attacked. 
He worked up the figures, nor did his work cease 
Till his columns were longer than those of Xerxes. 
These columns compulsive were doughtily led. 
To prove every word their Commander had said; 
Their onset tremendous put to flight every doubt, 
And scattered resistance in ruinous rout. 
The Rector went home, elated, that night. 
But the story got out soon after daylight; 
And every newcomer with woes to tell 
Running straight to the rectory, rang the bell. 
They went to the number of six hundred and one. 
And spoke every language under the sun; 
But all languages led to one certain end. 
Six hundred said "give," the remainder said "lend." 



All accounts from the days of the Conquerors down. 
Have assigned to the Aztecs the greatest renown; 
Their civilization was unspeakably old. 
And their pockets were always distended with gold; 



THE CHRONICLE OF I907 333 

They were blazing in scarlet, and feathers chromatic. 
And their houses were gorgeous from cellar to attic. 

But alas for the story 

Of the Aztec glory. 
When Turner assaulted these legends so hoary. 
With Prescott he frequently wiped up the earth 
And treated his volumes with rancorous mirth; 
He went for the Mexican, tore off his bonnet. 
And then threw it down and trampled upon it. 
He razed all the temples, pulled down all the pictures, 
And phed the poor Aztecs with pitiless strictures; 
In short, he demolished each honored tradition 
With cruel completeness and great expedition: 
And of Baker's learn'd paper which Maynard had read 
This ruthless iconoclast left not a shred. 



It is true and is trite that White's information 
Goes first to the farthest confines of creation, 
Then soars afar into scenes that dismay us, 
The spaces ruled over by night and by chaos. 

His wide observation 

And wise meditation, 

His bold speculation 

And excogitation 
Elicit diffused and deserved admiration. 
His knowledge of letters defies allegation. 
His profusion of facts exceeds supputation. 
Encyclopedias he holds in disdain 
Because of the limited facts they contain. 
To Webster or Worcester he never descends. 
The Century censures or aptly amends. 
His speech in Chaldaic is idiomatic. 
And his favorite writing is the old hieratic; 
So profound are his studies, he often must seek 
For relief in the levity of Kant's Critique. 



I sing the high virtues of that time honored stock 
Whose pedigree is planted on proud Plymouth rock. 
Who pre-empted New England and then hurried West 
To get everything, and got all the best; 
Then scattered more ways than can well be expressed 
In earnest endeavor to get all the rest. 



334 THE CHRONICLE OF igoj 

Their tempers were touchy, and not at all placid, 

Their virtues, though various, perceptibly acid. 

They devised the blue code of beneficent laws 

That punished everybody v^ithout any cause. 

Whatever one did, these laws he was breaching 

Except when breathing or sleeping or preaching. 

On Sundays they stopped all their eating and drinking 

And never attempted to do their own thinking. 

The pietist Pilgrim, each Saturday night. 

Put away all pleasures and locked them up tight, 

Retaining, however, his big musketoon 

With which he blew Pequots as high as the moon; 

But now I must tell of the lapsing from grace 

Of a lineal son of this virtuous race. 

There's a game which the bare-legged Highlander plays 

With a ball and a bat on his barren old braes; 

Aforetime they called it the "good game of goff,'* 

Then they put in an 1, and took an f off. 

By this Keltic diversion the Judge was seduced. 

And marvelous changes his fall has produced. 

Of old he permitted not a Sunday to pass 

Without teaching a nice little Sunday-school class, 

Of nice little girls exceedingly dressed 

And nice little boys all greatly depressed. 

But sadly, alas, it has now come to pass 

That he never goes near a Sunday-school class. 

Whenever he can he goes for a Sunday, 

To a place where they act as if it were Monday; 

And whenever day breaks 

On Sunday, he wakes 
And the road to the golf links instantly takes. 
His pious forefather with his steeple-crown hat 
Never bothered a ball nor looked at a bat; 
On Sunday he walked at a decorous pace 
With a lachrymose look and funereal face. 
The scion, on Sunday, resorts to high jinks 
With Belial's sons on impious links; 
With trembling I look for a woeful requital. 
And in sadness conclude this painful recital. 
Dec. 2, 1907. 



NOTES CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY 

1. Judge Ingersoll. The fact that the statements made in re- 
gard to Judge Ingersoll are in the main incorrect, if tested by the prosaic 
standard of actuality, is not regarded as a defect in the poem, because 
a poet's paramount and most essential faculty is fancy. To be accu- 
rate is to be dull, and therefore the fault is one that men almost invari- 
ably shun. In the case of ordinary persons this avoidance is, usually, 
a matter of choice, but with poets is it a necessity. Poems are tested 
primarily by the power of imagination, which they display, and are dis- 
torted and disfigured by avoidable facts. That Judge Ingersoll does 
not habitually play golf on Sunday is a fact. To affirm the contrary 
is to exercise the important and invaluable faculty of imagination and 
to improve the poem. Consider how unspeakably commonplace, and 
uninteresting it would have been to allege merely that the Judge does 
not play golf on Sunday. It is inconceivable that any poet would coin 
rhymes for the embodiment of a declaration so prosaic. On the other 
hand, the fact that the poet possesses an imagination capable of such 
a flight as that which is taken in the poem is regarded as a very sufficient 
foundation for a reasonable super-structure of pride. 

2. Mr. Baker. The writer now recollects that Mr. Baker declared 
that a tidal wave crossed the Pacific Ocean in either three or five min- 
utes, but the adoption in the poem of two minutes as the time of transit 
was made for the sake of eflPect, and is further justified by the fact that 
it does not at all detract from the credibility of Mr. Baker's affirmation. 

3. Mr. Whitaker. It may add to the effectiveness of what is said 
of Mr. Whitaker to state that among his callers were certain Armenians 
who demonstrated forcibly the exceptional capacity of their ancient and 
astute race for persistent solicitation, with a concomitant incapacity to 
recognize the quality or purpose of negations. 

4. Dr. Olmstead. Dr. Olmstead did not say that he saw a cyclone 
wind up a clock, but only that he had heard it said. It may be assumed, 
however, with absolute coVifidence that the Doctor would not add to the 
currency of a statement containing any element of inaccuracy, unless 
indeed he should engage in metrical composition. 

5. Dr. Richmond. I have omitted the statement by Dr. Rich- 
mond that the late Louisville cyclone bored a hole through the roof of 

( 335 ) 



336 NOTES CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY 

a house and purloined a pan of hot water without spilling any of the 
contents. I felt that it was the Doctor's duty to posterity to preserve 
this unique occurrence in permanent poetical form. 

6. Mr. Jourolmon. I have omitted, for want of space only, the 
fact that the young lady, dealt with so gently by the tornado, had red 
hair, and that while she was at the apogee of her orbit she encountered 
a white horse taking a similar flight. This interesting verification of 
an ancient adage deserves, however, to be recorded as one of the most 
remarkable facts that our investigations have ever developed. 

7. Mr. Maynard. Mr. Maynard will pardon the elimination of 
two of the three ships which the tornado deposited on the mountain 
top, and the more readily, it is hoped, when the writer states that he 
had in mind the largest of the three. A mortifying infirmity of mem- 
ory made it impossible for me to say whether the mountain was ten thou- 
sand or fifteen thousand feet high. 

8. Mr. Milton. The readers of The Sentinel will all agree that 
the editorial columns of that invaluable journal abound in the most im- 
pressive fiscal profundity. It might be asserted that if all the sugges- 
tions to be found there were adopted, there would be, not only a sure 
avoidance of panics, but a financial revolution as far reaching and as 
beneficent in its results as the displacement of the Ptolemaic or geocen- 
tric system of astronomy, by the doctrines of Keppler, Copernicus, and 
Newton. 

9. Dr. Mellen. It is noted with interest by the friends of Dr. 
Mellen that whereas, before his assumption of editorial functions his 
physique was marked by the tenuity which is common to those who en- 
gage habitually in perspiration, he is now growing stout. It is known 
that the Doctor has been engaged for a number of years upon his farm 
in training, for the racing field, certain species of domestic animals here- 
tofore utilized exclusively for beef and bacon, and that by scientific breed- 
ing and training he has brought some of these, of the razor-back species, 
up to a wholly unprecedented velocity of movement. This required 
constant and wearing physical exertion on his own part. Since he be- 
came an editor, his writings have been exceedingly restful to himself 
as well as to his readers, and it is with the most genuine pleasure that 
his very perceptible increase of weight is recorded. 

10. Mr. Keffer has been engaged in agricultural and horticultural 
experimentations of a most elaborate and beneficent character. His 



NOTES CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY 337 

field of operation was the middle and western grand divisions of this 
State. His proceedings have been largely insecticidal, with the result 
of an unprecedented mortality among the noxious arboreal bugs of those 
grand divisions. If his present successes should continue, it is believed 
that he will eventually, and justly, become as renowned in the matter 
of bugs as St. Patrick is in respect of snakes. 

11. Mr. White has not yet recovered from the disturbance of his 
nervous organization caused by his appearance in one of The Sentinel's 
cartoons. It is reported that in order to divert his mind after the appear- 
ance of the cartoon he increased his reading hours from eighteen to 
twenty-three, allowing himself only one hour for the two purposes of 
eating and sleeping. 

12. Mr. Powers, having been elected City Attorney, stoops a little 
under the weight of responsibility as Hercules did when Atlas dropped 
the earth on his shoulders. The writer is informed by Mr. Powers that 
his election to this office is regarded as a calamity of the first magnitude 
to litigants against the city, except by his defeated competitors. 

13. Mr. Ogden has demonstrated a versatility of talent which, 
while it is not surprising, is extremely gratifying, as will be demonstrated 
by reference to only four of the many subjects which he has elucidated, 
recently, within and without the club, viz. : Tobias Smollett, Leather, 
Prehistoric Ireland and Capital Punishment. 

14. Mr. Gibson. The author is compelled to regret his inability 
to make adequate reference to Mr. Gibson's recent fascinating and com- 
pendious discourse on wood, or to preserve for the edification of our- 
selves and of posterity his wholly unprecedented and incomparable 
feat of pronunciation in respect of the complicated appellative of a dis- 
tinguished prehistoric Celtic Ecclesiastic. 

15 Mr. Hoskins I understand to be the active and efficient incum- 
bent contemporaneously and continuously, of the chairs of History, 
Economics, and General Utility, in the University of Tennessee; in all 
of which he gives complete satisfaction. But these various and incog- 
nate pursuits appear to make the most moderate demands upon his 
ample capacities. 

16. Mr. Turner. The violence of Mr. Turner's literary temper 

was strikingly, not to say surprisingly, displayed for the first time, when 

the subject of the Aztecs was under discussion, and our surprise increased 

to astonishment when his undiluted censures were directed to his late 

22 



338 NOTES CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY 

compatriot, the historian Prescott. That he could disapprove of any- 
thing emanating from Massachusetts was a demonstration of a Hberal- 
ity which, despite the excessiveness of its expression, could not fail to 
be gratifying. 

17. Mr. Ross. In regard to Mr. Ross, the writer would not be 
understood as intimating that the very learned paper on Fielding con- 
tained any positive approvals of Tom Jones. Upon the contrary the 
disapprovals were as positively orthodox in form as could have been 
expected even from one in his responsible position. It was intimated, 
however, at the time, that there were certain skillfully obscured quali- 
fications of his censures which approximated the quality of condona- 
tions. As to the astucity of the qualifications there can be no question, 
but it seems to be clear that we have not yet sufficient grounds for an 
unqualified allegation of condonation. 

18. Dr. Bruce. It is a fact that Dr. Bruce has cultivated success- 
fully a system of esoteric calligraphy, but it must be conceded that this 
is distinctly within his rights as a man and a scholar. It is due him to 
say that the poem, owing to the inherent and necessary limitations of 
metrical composition, understates the extent of his condensation of the 
novel **Pamela," as he read within half an hour a resume of the most 
interminable book that the imagination of man has ever produced. 

The Prologue. The classical introduction to the poem serves 
mainly the purpose of irrelevant ornamentation. The author believed 
that he should do everything in his power to commend the poem to the 
Club, and his experience with writers and speakers has convinced him 
that irrelevancy in the use of classical and mythological subjects is, by 
usage, permissible, and that even the inconsequential introduction of 
them is generally approved. He may add that he has known many 
cases in which classical allusions were extremely effective and greatly 
admired, despite not only their palpable irrelevancy, but also their con- 
spicuous inaccuracy. 

The irrelevancy of the prologue is mitigated by the fact that it is 
intended to be an invocation of the goddess Euterpe who, by some writers, 
is treated as the muse of nonsense. 



